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THE 



ISLAND OF CAPRI. 



BY 

FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, 

BY THE AUTHOR'S PERMISSION, 
BY 



LILIAN CLARKE. 

BOSTON: 

LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 

NEW YORK: 

CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 

1879. 






Copyright, 1879, 
By LEE & SHEPARD. 



All rights reserved. 













KJ 







PREFACE. 



The writings of Gregorovius, well known in 
Europe, are less familiar to American readers. 
This is, I believe, the first translation which has 
appeared in America of any of the books of this 
interesting writer. It is a single chapter of his 
charming work called "Wanderjahre in Italien." 
Those who may be led by its perusal to seek the 
other productions of this author will enjoy the 
same pleasure which the translator has felt in her 
present labor. 

The view of Tiberius taken by Gregorovius, 
though it is generally received, has, as is well 
known, been seriously questioned by recent schol- 
ars. But the translator has not felt at liberty 
to modify the expressions of the author on this 

subject. 

L. C. 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 



A whole summer month I lived upon the Island 
of Capri, and enjoyed to the full the magical lone- 
liness of the sea. Now I would gladly retain these 
enchanted visions ; but the stillness, the beauty, 
the mystery, is hardly to be told in words. 

Jean Paul has compared Capri with a sphinx : 
to me, when I gazed at it from the mainland, the 
beautiful island seemed like an antique sarcopha- 
gus, on whose sides are carved the serpent-haired 
Eu men ides ; but above, on the lid, lies Tiberius. 
And so this classically-formed island constantly 
attracted me by its shape, by its loneliness, and by 
the dim memories of that Emperor of Rome, who, 
of the world that belonged to him, chose for his 
own only this rock. 

It was on a Sunday, and the clearest morning, 
that we stepped into a boat at Sorrento, and were 
rowed to Capri. The sea was as still as the sky, 

5 



6 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

and all in the far distance lost in a dreamy haze. 
But Capri lay before us, large and stern, with its 
battlements of unbending cliffs and peaks, the mel- 
ancholy wildness of its mountains, and the rugged 
steepness of its dizzy precipices of red limestone. 
Upon the heights, brown Castelle, now fallen to 
ruin ; forsaken redoubts, with their abandoned can- 
non, now covered by the smiling yellow flowers of 
the wild broom ■ cliffs, waste and wild, springing 
high into the air, around which the sea-hawk 
flutters, — the dwelling of the sun and of birds, as 
^Eschylus says ; caves, deep below, dimly lighted, 
and full of mystery ; but above, on the bent back of 
the island, a cheerful little town, with white, domed 
houses, with high walls, and a domed church-tower. 
Below, the harbor of the fishermen, with its narrow 
beach of white sand, and boats ranged in many 
rows. 

The bells were ringing and echoing as we ap- 
proached the land ; and upon the beach stood a 
pretty fisher-girl, holding a little bench of wood, 
which she pushed into the water as the boat touched 
the sand, so that we might land dry-footed. And 
as I sprang upon the shore, upon this wonderful 
Capri, which in the North I had so often pic- 
tured to myself, I felt immediately at home. All 
was still and quiet; scarcely a fisherman to be 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 7 

seen, only two or three children bathing from a 
cliff, a few fisher-girls upon the beach, the rocks 
around, stern and silent. I had entered a wild 
and enchanted solitude. A steep and difficult 
path leads from the shore, between garden- walls, 
directly up to the little town of Capri. Among 
the rocks are gardens, with olive-trees, orange- 
trees, and grape-vines ; but they strike the eye as 
being somewhat thin and scanty, if accustomed to 
the luxuriance of the Campanian landscape. The 
very trees appear to be hermits upon Capri. 

Crossing the wooden bridge, and entering the 
town itself, through the ancient gate, the mind 
receives the most cheerful impression of a life of 
seclusion from the world, and the most unique 
picture of peace, childlike simplicity, and freedom 
from care. For here, in a very small piazza, 
peasants, in their holiday clothes, are sitting gos- 
siping on the stone steps of the church ; there, 
children are playing, full of noise and glee ; and the 
little square itself looks as if the children had built 
it in their play. The houses are small, with domes 
and flat roofs, and almost every house has a vine 
trained over it. 

Through narrow streets, where no wagon has ever 
passed, we walk to the Locanda of Don Michele 
Pagano, in front of which a royal palm-tree lifts its 



8 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

majestic head. Here, also, it seems as if we were 
entering the most peaceful retreat, — an inn for 
pilgrims, with the staff and cockle-hat. 

We had hardly entered our rooms, before a mur- 
muring song enticed us out into the street again. 
It was Sunday, and there could not fail to be some 
procession ; but how strange and fantastic was the 
sight ! Men and women in white capuchin hoods 
and white veils walked behind the cross. Around 
the white hoods were twined green wreaths, made 
of the thorny blackberry-vine ; and the rope upon 
the shoulder showed that it was done as a penance, 
for this ceremony is supposed to have influence 
upon the grape-disease. So they passed, singing 
through the streets ; and these vine-crowned figures 
looked so heathenish, that they seemed like a pro- 
cession of the priests of Bacchus, going, crowned 
with vine-leaves, to a temple of the heathen god. 
Almost all the men wore these wreaths, even those 
who did not have the cowl of the brotherhood. 
I was especially struck with the head of an old 
soldier, with silver-white hair and beard, who ap- 
peared, under his blackberry- wreath, exactly like a 
satyr. Behind the men came the women and girls 
in their long white veils ; and as the streets are so 
narrow that only two human beings can walk side 
by side in one of them, they were filled from one 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 9 

wall of the town to the other while the procession 

passed through. 

This was my welcome to Capri. I afterward 
lived there the happiest days. And because there 
is hardly any other place in the world over which I 
have wandered and climbed so joyfully, scaling all 
the heights, and descending into the deepest grot- 
toes that are accessible, and because Capri and its 
inhabitants became so exceedingly dear to me, 
I will make this little picture of the island, as is 
the custom of grateful sailors, who set up a votive 
tablet, and write under it, Votum fecit, gratiam 
recepit. 

By the Greeks and Romans the island was called 
Caprea, or Caprea. Scholars have derived the 
name from the Latin, where it signifies " The Island 
of the Goat." Others suppose it to be of Phoeni- 
cian origin : according to these, it comes from the 
Phoenician word Capraim, which is translated, " Two 
Cities," or "A Double City." The Greeks looked 
upon it as an island of sirens ; and to this day one 
spot upon the shore retains the name La Sirena. 
But the " Isles of the Sirens " of Homer, as they 
were once considered, lie opposite to Capri, on the 
side of the Cape of Minerva, toward Amalfi ; and 
this cape, called to-day Capo di Campanella, was 
thought to be the Island of Circe. Thus all 



IO THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

around is Odyssean fable-land, the sea-home of the 
sirens among the beautiful waves, — sirens whose 
song allured the sailor, when, on leaving the Bay of 
Posidonia, he passed by the steep cliffs of the 
island. 

It is not known when Capri received her first 
inhabitants. Perhaps it was some of her Oscan 
neighbors from the mainland that first settled here. 
That the Phoenicians also founded colonies here is 
universally allowed, and to them is ascribed the 
foundation of both cities ; for the island, divided 
by nature into an upper and a lower part, shows, 
that even in old times there were two cities ; and 
Strabo says, " Capri possessed in ancient times two 
cities, afterward only one." 

Later came the Greeks into the beautiful water- 
basin of Naples, the Crater as it is called by old 
geographers, and settled along the coasts and on 
the islands. But the Teieboans, men of Taphian 
or Acarnanian origin, went to Capri, as is related 
by Virgil and Tacitus. The first Greek ruler of the 
island was called Telone. 

At this period, about the eighth century before 
the Christian era, the Greeks founded colonies 
along the bays of Posidonia and of Naples. They 
built Cumse and Neapolis, and took possession of 
the islands of this beautiful sea. To the highest 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. II 

part of Capri they gave the name Anacapri, or the 
Upper Town of Capri, which it retains to this day. 
If you listen to the conversation of the present 
inhabitants of Capri, you hear many Grecian forms 
of speech ; and, if you look into their faces, you 
notice, especially in the dark, low-browed, finely- 
cut features of the women, traces of their Hellenic 
origin, — an impression which is strengthened by 
the graceful arrangement of the hair, gathered sim- 
ply into a knot low down at the back of the head, 
and through, the exquisite draping of the mucador, 
or headkerchief. But the Greeks, although they 
retained possession of the island after the Roman 
era, are yet very distant ancestors of the present 
inhabitants, in whose veins runs mixed blood, as 
is the case with the Neapolitans. Nevertheless, the 
Greeks were the ancestors of this people, whose 
gentleness and grace of manner now fascinates the 
stranger, makes of these bare rocks a lovely idyl, 
and even throws a softening charm around the 
memory of the fearful demon Tiberius. 

At this time, the Greeks built upon Capri temples 
of which no trace remains ; and it is said that the 
youth of the island were remarkably skilful in the 
Greek wrestling-games, which they practised in 
the palaestra. Augustus himself took pleasure in 
the gymnastic games of the youth of Capri, for 



12 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

in his time the island was still Greek in its charac- 
ter. It belonged then to the Greek city Neapolis. 
Augustus fell in love with Capri. He resigned to 
the Neapolitans the blooming Island of Ischia, and 
received in exchange the classically formed rocks 
of Capri. At the very moment when he stepped 
from the boat upon the shore of the island, he 
received news of a good omen : an evergreen oak, 
withered with age, had suddenly put forth green 
leaves. This pleased the emperor so much, that he 
decided upon the exchange. 

Augustus came, enfeebled by age, to breathe the 
health-restoring air of Campania. The balmy air 
of the cool island, the strange beauty of the rocks, 
the Greek character of the inhabitants, all delighted 
him. He built for himself in Capri a villa, and laid 
out gardens. According to the opinion of antiqua- 
rians, this country-house stood where to-day are 
seen the mighty ruins of the Villa di Giove, which 
is known to the common people as the Villa of Ti- 
berius par excellence. The situation is enchanting, 
being on the highest point of the eastern shore, 
where the view includes in one mighty sweep both 
bays and the boundless Sicilian Sea. But all traces 
of Augustus have vanished from the island, lost 
among the fearful traditions of Tiberius ; and so it 
is no longer known what, nor how extensively, 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 13 

Augustus built there, noi how often he himself 
came to the island. 

Doubtless these visits were made during the last 
years of his life. According to Suetonius, he, shortly 
before his death, spent four days upon Capri, in 
company with Tiberius and the astrologer Thrasyl- 
lus, giving himself up entirely to repose and relaxa- 
tion. " As he happened to sail by the Bay of Puteoli, 
an Alexandrian ship had just landed, whose passen- 
gers and crew dressed themselves in white garments 
with chaplets upon their heads, and, offering incense, 
loaded him with praises and joyful acclamations, 
since from him they had received life, a prosperous 
voyage, freedom, and good fortune. This pleased 
him so much, that he divided among his followers 
four hundred pieces of gold, and caused them to 
bind themselves by oath to use this gold for no 
other purpose than to buy the wares of the Alexan- 
drians. And, each day that the merchants remained, 
he distributed other gifts of togas and pallia, and 
commanded that the Romans should use the Greek, 
and the Greeks the Roman dress and language. 
He likewise constantly attended the exercises of the 
Ephebi, according to an ancient custom still con- 
tinued at Capri. He gave them a banquet in his 
own presence, and not only permitted, but required, 
from them the utmost freedom in jesting with each 



14 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

other, and in snatching apples and fruit and pres- 
ents thrown to them, from each other's hands. He 
looked coldly upon no kind of cheerful amusement. 
An island lying near Capri he called Apragopolis, 
on account of the do-nothing character of those of 
his followers who had emigrated thither. A favorite 
of his, one Masgaba, he used to call Ktistes, as if 
he had been the founder of the island. And ob- 
serving from his room a crowd of people with 
torches, surrounding the tomb of this Masgaba, who 
had died the year before, he spoke aloud this line, 
which he had made extempore, — 

' Blazing with lights, I see the founder's tomb; ' 

then turning to Thrasyllus, a companion of Tibe- 
rius, who reclined on the other side of the table, he . 
asked him (who knew nothing of the matter) from 
what poet the line was quoted. As Thrasyllus hesi- 
tated, Augustus added a second line, — 

1 Honored with torches Masgaba you see,' 

and put the same question to him concerning 
that also. The latter answered only, that, who- 
ever might be the author, the lines were admirable. 
Augustus then burst into a laugh, and overflowed 
with merriment." 

Shortly afterward he went to Naples, and soon 
died at Nola. This is what Suetonius relates of the 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 15 

last sojourn of the emperor upon Capri. It is very 
little, and yet it is worth much to us to have this 
pleasant picture of the gray-haired Augustus, and of 
his merry jokes with the inhabitants of the island. 
And the picture is doubly attractive from the con- 
trast with Tiberius ; for now follows — the aged 
-Tiberius upon Capri. 

This little island was, for eleven years, Rome and 
the centre of the world. Time itself was hoary 
with age, like the hermit of these rocky cliffs ; his- 
tory, only a gloomy monologue of the man with the 
Medusa head. 

When I sit here upon the ruins of the Villa of 
Zeus, and look across the sparkling bay, it seems as 
if the smoking Vesuvius were the Tiberius of Na- 
ture, and I think Tiberius himself must often have 
sat here wrapped in his own thoughts, looked across 
to Vesuvius, and in his fiendish atheism feasted his 
eyes upon the sight of his emblem, the Demon of 
Destruction. Yes, if we look first at the volcano, 
and then at that elysian Campania at its feet, and at 
this friendly sea breathing out light, the lonely 
mountain, which raises itself so grimly, towering 
above the whole country, seems a type of the his- 
tory of the human race, and this whole great thea- 
tre of Naples to be a poem of nature full of the 
deepest meaning. Just so gloomy, malignant, and 



l6 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

lonely as the volcano above the paradise at its feet, 
the Hermit of Capri once towered above the beau- 
tiful world which he governed. The soul of the 
human monster boils within him ; and, if the rage 
for destruction breaks its boundaries, it scatters 
abroad devastation of cities, sentences of death, 
flight and exile, and buries the earth in thick 
darkness. 

His memory yet lives among the common peo- 
ple. Thousands of years will not efface it ; for that 
which is terrible makes a more lasting impression 
on the mind than that which is kindly. They call 
him here Timberio, and call Capri Crap ; and, wher- 
ever you go upon the island, you see traces of this 
human tiger. Even the far-famed wine of Capri is 
here called the Tears of Tiberius, as that of Vesu- 
vius is called the Tears of Christ. I think the 
tears wept by a man like Tiberius must be exceed- 
ingly precious among the treasures of Nature. 

I find here a strange popular belief which has 
surprised me not a little. It is maintained by the 
common people, that, deep below the mountain on 
which are the ruins of the Villa of Tiberius, the 
emperor is seated upon a colossal bronze horse, 
himself a statue of bronze, with diamond eyes : the 
gigantic horse also has eyes of diamond. A youth 
who crept into a fissure of the rock is said to have 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. I 7 

seen him ; but the trace of the spot where he 
entered was lost immediately. I heard the tradi- 
tion from the old Franciscan monk who now lives 
as a hermit among the ruins of the villa ; and I 
also found it in Mangone's book upon Capri. It 
recalls the tradition of the Emperor Rothbart in 
Kyffhalisen ; but the people will hardly desire the 
recall to life of the Emperor Tiberius. 

He came to the island in the year 26 A.D., and 
lived here eleven long years, until he died by suffo- 
cation at Misenum, during a short absence. He 
had transformed the whole island into a pleasure - 
grove of Venus and an Olympus of all the gods. 
The twelve villas consecrated to the higher gods, 
together with other beautiful buildings, must, with 
the sublime rocks, have given to the island an 
enchantingly beautiful aspect. To-day the island 
is strewed with ruins, and many are still hidden in 
the earth under the vineyards. The arches and 
vaults of these castles of pleasure now yawn, hollow 
and ghostlike, out of the rubbish upon the hills, 
like the remains of a deserted banquet-hall, dreary 
to behold, since it besieges the fancy at the same 
time with images fantastic and melancholy, with 
visions of beauty and pleasure, and of desolation. 

When the fearful one was dead, the beautiful 
theatre remained empty of its delights ; the glory 



15 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

of Capri declined. The people say that Romans 
came to the island, and tore down the buildings. 
History, it is true, says nothing of this ; but neither 
does it mention that Capri was visited by the suc- 
cessors of Tiberius. Caligula had been with him 
upon the island ; here for the first time was shaved, 
and assumed the toga ; and formed himself after 
the school of his uncle. The gormandizer Vitellius 
also, as a youth, lived on Capri. Later, in the time 
of Commodus, Crispina his wife, and daughter 
Lucilla, endured a weary banishment on this island, 
as is related by Dio Cassius ; and a bas-relief 
found upon Capri during the preceding century 
confirms this story. It represents both princesses ' 
in the attitude of suppliants asking protection. 

Afterward the island shared the fate of the neigh- 
boring country along the coast. After the fall of 
Rome, it first fell into the hands of the barbarians, 
then came into the possession of the Greeks, as 
did Naples itself. It was the property of the Greek 
Duke of Naples, and in the ninth century passed 
into the hands of the then flourishing republic of 
Amalfi, which received it as a gift from the Emperor 
Louis. -l 

At the beginning of the Norman Conquest, in the 
south of Italy, Capri was held by the brave Roger 
of Sicily, who seized the island from Amalfi, and so 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 19 

it was, in turn, the property of the Normans, the 
House of Hohenstaufen, the Houses of Anjou and 
of Aragon, and governed by their deputies. In 
the year 1806 the English took it from the Nea- 
politans. They occupied it in the name of King 
Ferdinand of Sicily, strengthened the fortifications, 
and gave it into the command of that Sir Hudson 
Lowe who was later to become immortal as the 
jailer of St. Helena. The English ruled in Capri 
almost three years, until the Muratists by a bold 
stroke seized the island. It was the historian 
Coletta, then engineer under Murat, who first 
reconnoitred Capri, and marked the spot where 
the rocky shore could be scaled. On the 4th of 
October, 1808, the island was taken, after a fierce 
battle, and Sir Hudson Lowe carried prisoner to 
Naples. 

These statistics may be of service to us in giving 
information of the historical changes undergone by 
Capri. Events have passed by, leaving no impres- 
sion, not even the slightest trace, on the minds of 
the people. All that survives is the memory of the 
fearful Tiberius ; and often it seemed strange to me 
to hear from the lips of children at their games the 
name of the most terrible character of history. 
You hear of him everywhere, because he became 
so united with the place. The life of this one man 



20 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

has pervaded the whole island, and added to the 
pensive character of its scenery the tragic force of 
history. This gives to Capri the charm of tragedy 
for those who are impressionable to what is wild 
and gloomy in nature and in history. Here lie in 
strange contrast the awful and the beautiful, — the 
smiling green valley, close by the steep walls of 
rock, which cut through the cheerful plant-life, and 
tower upward to the clouds, bare and gigantic ; and 
this every-day type of a simple, natural human life, 
giving beauty to virtue and poverty, and ennobling 
labor, finds its sharpest contrast in the constantly 
recurring image of Tiberius, the man of most un- 
natural qualities, and inhuman wickedness. 

The character of these contrasts, and the wonder- 
ful manner in which Nature has united these con- 
flicting elements into one plastic whole, is what 
chiefly excites my astonishment. There are here 
so many bare rocks, that upon large flat plains they 
would produce an effect of dreary desolation ; but 
it is otherwise upon Capri. Nature here guards 
against monotonous bareness by beauty of line 
and form ; against deadness, by warmth of color ; 
against dryness, by scattered greenness and the 
ornament of flowering plants. And so she com- 
bines all these peculiar features, — bare wastes, 
ruins, sharp peaks, all forms of monotony and 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 21 

nakedness in miniature, — and of the whole forms 
an enchanting picture, in which what is large and 
imposing retains its character, and the gloomy and 
awful remains gloomy and awful, and yet, through 
the power of form, has all the charm of grace. All 
produces a cheerful impression : the strong be- 
comes the peaceful ; desolation is softened into an 
aspect of pleasant seclusion. Mountains, cliffs, and 
valleys affect the mind as if by a secret charm ; 
they form, as it were, the cell of a recluse, through 
the lattice of which is seen the most beautiful bay 
in the world ; and this is again held embraced by 
silent, dreamy shores ; and so it is, in truth, a 
magic ring by which you are encircled. 

The similarity of the scenery of Capri to that of 
Sicily is striking. It is a perfect model of Sicily 
in miniature, not only on account of the dryness 
of the soil, but also from the glowing red color of 
the limestone, the fantastic shapes of the cliffs, and 
even on account of the vegetation, which is here 
quite Southern in its character, but not luxuriant. 
Between the red stones, as if sown in the folds of 
the mountain, grow all the sweet-scented herbs and 
grasses of the most southern islands of Europe, 
perfuming the air with their fragrant breath. There 
is found the myrtle, the citisus, the rue and rose- 
mary, the wild basil and albatro, and the flowering 



22 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

heath ; the blackberry and the ivy, and the clematis- 
vine throw their graceful creepers around the ruins 
and cliffs ; and the golden-yellow broom hangs in 
full clusters from all the heights. But the most 
beautiful plant of Capri, which, as it happens, 
takes its name from the island, is not the capri- 
folium, or geissblatt, but the caper-bush : it hangs 
from all the walls and ledges of rock, and adorns 
them with its white flowers full of long lilac-colored 
stamens. Along the slopes, terraces have been 
formed with great pains, and gardens laid out in 
the small level spaces thus procured. There thrives 
every fruit and every tree of the Campania. There 
grow the oak and mulberry tree in great profusion ; 
the olive, strong, branching, and loaded with fruit ; 
the cypress and pine, sparingly ; the carob-tree, 
large and powerful ; everywhere, the fig, fruitful, 
and in great profusion ; more scantily, the chestnut 
and walnut, but the orange and lemon in great 
abundance, the fruit attaining in these gardens to 
an astonishing size and beauty, sometimes growing 
as large as a child's head. The grape does not 
attain to the Bacchic luxuriance of the grape-vine 
of Campania, but is heavy with clusters, whose 
precious and far-famed fiery wine the glow of the 
sun has brought to perfection. What also gives to 
this little island the character of Sicily is the great 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 23 

profusion of the prickly-pear : its fantastic African 
shape suits well with the dryness of the rocky land- 
scape and the sunny glow of its tropical coloring. 

Nature having thus sung together this enchanted 
island into harmonious shape and color, she seems 
to have created the inhabitants in the same way, and 
given to them their fanciful and idyllic character. 
The little town of Capri, which stretches itself in a 
line along the mountain-ridge, between the hills of 
San Michele and Castello, is very unique in its 
aspect. The houses, small and white, have a flat 
roof, in the middle of which rises a little dome ; 
upon this flat space flowers are placed, and there 
the inhabitants sit in the cool of the evening, and 
look out upon the wide world and the rose-tinged 
sea. All the rooms are arched, like the subterra- 
nean parts of the villas of the time of Tiberius. 
The house itself is either surrounded by a terrace, 
or else opens upon an arched loggia or veranda, 
which has a very pleasant aspect, and is generally 
covered by a grape-vine, and luxuriantly adorned 
by the most beautiful flowers, — blue hortensias, 
purple-red pinks, and rose-colored oleanders. If 
the house opens upon the garden, the pergola, or 
arbor of grape-vines, is found before the door. 
This pergola is the most beautiful ornament of 
these island dwellings ; for it consists of a double 



24 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

row of white, plastered pillars, which support the 
roof of the arbor. These give to the poorest house 
a touch of elegance, and impart to the architecture 
something antique and ideal. These rows of pil- 
lars, with grape-vines twining around them, often 
look like the arcades of a temple. They call to 
mind the pillars of the houses of Pompeii. Here 
and there in the gardens stands a palm-tree : the 
finest of all grows in the garden of the innkeeper, 
Pagano, whose house is called the Palace by the 
other inhabitants of Capri. 

Outside of the little city dwell vine-cultivators, 
scattered about in their farm-houses, in gardens, 
upon small eminences, or at the foot of some rock 
quite covered and buried with grape-vines, or with 
the flowering oleander. Each one of these little 
houses seems like an asylum of the blessed, and the 
abode of cloistered peace. 

The inhabitants of Capri, about two thousand in 
number, are the most peacefully happy people in 
the world, — courteous in their manners, full of 
grace and vivacity, very poor, active, and industri- 
ous. They are either farmers, vine-cultivators, or 
fishermen ; and these latter possess in common their 
boats and the fish that they take. The other in- 
habitants are, for the most part, only tenant-farmers ; 
for most of the farms belong to Neapolitans. The 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 25 

farmer pays yearly eighty or one hundred Neapoli- 
tan ducats of rent, which he must make, together 
with what his own subsistence costs, from his vine- 
yards, olives, and fruit-trees. If the vine-crop 
should fail, as it did three years ago, the tenant 
becomes poor ; and it is piteous to hear the com- 
plaints of these poor vine-growers, and to see the 
vineyards desolated by the grape-disease. I found 
women, who said to me, weeping, that they had 
sold all their necklaces, rings, and ear-rings ; and 
this is a sign of great poverty, for only the direst 
necessity will force the women to part with their 
ornaments. The ornaments are worn at all times 
and places ; so that you see the striking incongruity 
of a young girl performing the most humble ser- 
vices decked out in long golden ear-rings, and with 
a golden heart upon her rebast. This is her treas- 
ure, frequently her only possession ; but the orna- 
ment is often neither of the strongest nor the finest 
gold. 

The cattle of Capri are few ; but every year more 
than two hundred are brought over from the main- 
land : and the cheese of the island is quite famous. 
In the autumn and spring the inhabitants draw a 
part of their subsistence from the birds which they 
shoot. At these seasons, flocks of birds -of-passage, 
chiefly quails, fly over the island on their way from 



26 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

the south to the north, and vice versa. During 
their journey the poor birds stop to rest on these 
inhospitable shores, and are killed in multitudes, 
seized, or taken in nets. With this exception, there 
is no hunting on the island, and no fourfooted prey, 
— neither fox nor marten, — except a great multi- 
tude of rabbits, which at night hop out of the 
crevices of the rocks, and run into the fields, to 
steal their scanty portion from the poverty of the 
farmer. These rabbits are the most unlucky crea- 
tures on the island. The poor rogues pay. a dear 
price for their hermitages. 

The sea secures to the inhabitants of Capri an 
unfailing source of livelihood. The fisherman here 
finds prey of every sort, — the tunny and the sword- 
fish, the beautiful murena, but especially the sardine 
and the calamajo, or cuttle-fish. This latter is usu- 
ally taken at night. As soon as it is dark, the fish- 
ermen go out upon the sea, and attract the fish to 
the surface by the light of a torch. The frightful 
polyp-like animal then clutches at the spikes of a 
barbed stick, and impales itself thereon. The fish- 
erman remains all night upon the sea, and comes 
home only at sunrise ; then he must attend to the 
drying of the net and the mending of the broken 
meshes. He sleeps a few hours, and must make 
ready again for the sea. It is a laborious and fati- 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 27 

guing life ; the sea often deceitful, and the contents 
of a net, belonging to. a whole society of fisherman, 
often worth not more than two carlini. 

The busy life of the Marina Grande, where 
stands a row of houses, — the only harbor of the 
island, — affords constantly an amusing and interest- 
ing spectacle. The fishermen are powerful men, 
often very handsome, of herculean proportions, with 
muscular limbs and a dark-brown complexion, and 
faces full of energy, looking very bold and striking 
under the Phrygian cap which they wear. If the 
sea is disturbed, they rejoice in its wild motion, as 
they draw the boats through the surf upon the 
beach. This latter is small, and not secure from 
the beating of the waves, and not large enough to 
afford room for all the boats : on this account each 
boat has a separate compartment protected by 
walls, in which it is fastened during a storm. There 
are about a hundred boats upon the beach, besides 
three larger ones, which are made use of in crossing 
the bay between Naples and Capri. The harbor- 
less shore is not adapted to sail-boats. Every 
Tuesday and Friday, the return boat comes from 
Naples, whither it went the day before. Then 
there are the gayest scenes upon the shore ; for the 
women and young girls of Anacapri come down 
the great stone steps to receive what the boat has 



28 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

brought for them. If the sea is disturbed, the 
younger fishermen spring out into the waves before 
the boat stops. They plunge head-foremost into the 
water, like ducks diving. Those in the boat throw 
rope and oar to them ; and the boat is gradually 
lightened, as, one after another, they spring out of 
it. Those on shore, with shouts and cries, pull the 
boat, by means of the rope, up upon the beach; 
and the voice of the padrone is heard above the 
rushing of the surf and the wild shouts of the men, 
who are usually roused into a state of great excite- 
ment. On the shore, the women are waiting to 
receive the boat's cargo. This usually consists of 
articles for family use, — vegetables, melons, bis- 
cuits, or clothes and household utensils. Also many 
wreaths and bouquets of flowers are brought from 
Naples, and newly-published songs from the quay 
Santa Lucia. But the stranger visiting Capri seats 
himself on one of the fragments of rock on the 
shore, and breaks open the letter, which has just 
been brought for him with the boat's cargo. 

Almost all the boats on the shore belong to the 
fishermen of Capri ; only a few, to those who live 
above in Anacapri. A natural barrier exists be- 
tween this town and the sea ; for it is situated on 
the highest point of the island, just below the peak 
of Solaro. On the other hand, many of the active 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 29 

young men of Anacapri, a larger number than those 
of Capri, leave the island, and go to other places to 
search for coral. Every year about two hundred go 
away for this purpose. To supply the market of 
the coral-merchants in Torre del Greco, they ven- 
ture in their boats as far as the straits of Bonifazio 
and the coasts of Africa. They go in March, and 
come back in October. On their return, they find 
whatever Fate has accomplished in their little world 
since their departure, — joy or sorrow, faith or per- 
fidy, new life, or recent death. If they have gained 
a hundred ducats, they are enabled to marry their 
sweetheart ; for in Capri a hundred ducats places 
a man in such a position that he can afford to 
marry. An artist told me that he had had the 
following conversation with the youth who carried 
his easel ; — 

Young Man. — Have you a wife, signor? Ai'- 
tist. — No. Young Man. — Have you not then 
a hundred ducats ? Artist. — Yes, I have a hun- 
dred ducats. Young Man {much astonished). — 
How, signor ! you have a hundred ducats, and are 
not married? 

I was pleasantly reminded of these exiled coral- 
fishers, when one da}', on the staircase leading to 
Anacapri, a young girl offered me for sale some 
Arabian coins. Her brother had, the year before, 



30 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

brought them to her as a present, from " the 
heathen countries." I bought them of her as a 
memento, and as lucky-pence, which must have 
some mysterious story attached to them. 

The coral-trade is also pursued on the shores of 
Capri itself. The children and fisher-girls collect 
bits of coral ; they weave very small baskets of 
straw, and in these they place pieces of red coral, 
seahorses, starfish, and small bright-colored shells ; 
and, when you walk along the shore, they step 
before you, and with laughing eyes offer you for 
sale the dainty little basket, and it is impossible not 
to buy it. 

Yes, every thing here is small, dainty, and grace- 
ful ; and the work that employs the young girls in 
their little houses, where they reel or spin the beau- 
tiful golden-yellow silk, or weave it into gay ribbons, 
is oolite fascinating. The industry of the women 
consists here in the manufacture of silk, chiefly 
weaving it into ribbons, as well above, in Anacapri, 
as below. Many looms are there employed. The 
young girls sit at their work from sunrise until dark. 
The cotton or silk is provided by the merchants of 
Naples, who pay scantily for the work. The spin- 
ners weave ribbons of all colors. It is very pleas- 
ant to watch this quiet, Homeric pursuit carried on 
by these charming, womanly figures in the little 






THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 31 

vaulted chambers, or on the terraces, among the 
blooming flowers, and in sight of the sea. It is 
like living in a fairy-tale, and it is a very pleasant 
amusement to converse with these little black- 
browed Circes. 

There is in Capri a lonely house upon a hill. 
Within it sit four maidens together, in sisterly 
fashion, and ceaselessly weave together silk and 
straw for ladies' bonnets. These four young girls 
are the elite of the maiden world of Capri. Their 
room is the gathering-place for the other young 
girls of the island. Strangers also pay them visits. 
The artists call them the Four Altars, from the 
honors that are paid to them • but my host has 
named them the Four Seasons. As I sat in their 
room one day, I noticed a slip of paper which one 
of the sisters had carefully fastened to her loom. 
Upon it was painted a spray of ivy, and the fol- 
lowing line from Sophocles written beneath it, 
— the line that begins the CEdipus Tyrannus : — 

" 7 12 Ttuva, Kiidyov ruv nakai vea rpoQy," 

" O children, the young brood of the old Cadmus ! " 

The spinner asked me to explain to her what 
the writing meant ; for it had been written by an 
Englishman who had been there. I told her the 
words signified " O child, thou art by day my 



32 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

temple, and by night my star ! " She smiled, and 
was contented. 

I have often, in the mountains of Italy, been 
struck and charmed by the naivete of the people ; 
but I think I never found any more naive than 
these. Separation from the rest of the world has 
preserved their gentleness of manner and the 
charm of unperverted nature. Nothing is known 
here of the crimes of civilization. All is peace, 
poverty, and industry. The stranger is received 
as a friend, and feels at home immediately; and 
indeed there cannot be a sharper contrast than 
between the world of Capri and that of Naples. 

The young girls of Capri are not so much 
beautiful, as graceful and charming. Their fea- 
tures often show signs of the mingling of different 
races. The lines of these low-browed, striking faces 
are regular, and often very noble. The eyes, of a 
sparkling black or tender gray, the brown com- 
plexion, the black hair, the folds of the headker- 
chief, the coral ornaments, and golden ear-rings, 
give to the face something of an Oriental charac- 
ter. I often saw, especially in the remote and 
secluded Anacapri, faces of a wild, strange beauty ; 
and when such a face looked up from the loom, 
and out from the dimly-lighted room, — the hair in 
picturesque confusion, the eyebrows black, and 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. S3 

sharply drawn, and the eyes large, and flashing 
fire, — I seemed to see before me the face of one 
of the daughters of Danaus. In Capri, on the other 
hand, are seen faces which recall Perugino and 
Pinturicchio, and have often a most striking and 
poetic expression. The hair is worn with careless 
grace, and is most beautiful, in Anacapri, knotted 
low upon the head, and with a silver arrow thrust 
through it. Often the headkerchief is arranged 
like a turban ; and then the wearer may easily be 
taken for the inhabitant of another zone. But the 
greatest ornament of the women of Capri, and 
more precious than gold, is their teeth. I think 
the reason the inhabitants of Capri have such 
beautiful teeth is that they have so little to bite. 

These charming figures ought to be seen in 
groups, or watched when they come up the hill, 
carrying on their head the water-pitcher of antique 
form, or baskets filled with earth or stones : they 
are so poor that they are glad to earn a trifling sum 
by carrying burdens. The young girl of Capri is 
the only beast of burden on the island ; and thus 
you may see the most lovely children, from four- 
teen to twenty years old, Gabriella, Costanziella, 
Maria Antonia, Concetta, Teresa, — whose heads, 
in England, France, or Germany, would be ob- 
jects of admiration in many a picture-gallery, — 



34 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

carrying up from the seashore, on these very heads, 
burdens for which the strength of a man would 
seem hardly sufficient. 

Two weeks ago a boat from Naples came to the 
island, and unloaded upon the shore a cargo of 
tufa stone which was to be used for the rebuilding 
of the old convent. Within five days, these stones 
were all carried up to the convent on the heads of 
young girls. The path is so steep, that I murmured 
at it every day, returning fresh from my bath, with 
nothing to carry. One reaches the top quite out 
of breath. But during five days these girls, per- 
haps thirty in all, were continually employed in 
carrying stones up this path. They usually carried 
two at once ; the feebler only one. To try their 
weight, I lifted one of these stones, and, by exert- 
ing all the strength of both arms, I succeeded in 
raising it high enough to place it upon one of 
these charming heads ; and this seemed to me a 
very unknightly service to render. These simple 
children, after resting a few minutes on the way, 
often begged the passers-by to help them up with 
their load. They went to their Sisyphus labor 
before the sun rose, and left off only when it sank, 
in a wide glow of purple, behind the distant island 
of Ponza. Thus laden, they, every day in the 
heat of August, climbed the hill sixteen times. 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 35 

When they took the stones from the shore, a clerk 
stood there who kept the account, and above, on 
La Certosa, another, who wrote each number grave- 
ly in his book. Gabriella has twice ten stones 
inscribed upon the book of fate ; the fair Costan- 
ziella, alas, only ten ! Their wages were about 
twenty-five cents a day. In their simplicity, these 
children had neglected to make any contract with 
their employer ; and, when asked what they were to 
receive for such fatiguing labor, they replied, " We 
think probably a carlino a day, or else bread from 
Castellamare to the same amount : Sunday we shall 
receive our pay." 

During these days, the island presented an es- 
pecially beautiful appearance, and the artists has- 
tened eagerly to sketch these graceful figures. As 
the tufa of Herculaneum is of a beautiful cool 
gray color, it made the most charming combina- 
tions, in contrast with the red headkerchief, and 
supported on the head by one or both hands. 
These files of poor wandering stone-carriers seemed 
to me to take every variety of graceful and unique 
pose, resembling the antique figures of the Ca- 
nephorae, or the daughters of Egypt carrying stones 
for the Egyptian Pyramids. Indeed, I could never 
look at them without wonder and emotion. They 
laughed and jested under their burdens, and were 



36 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

as bright and charming as ever. It seemed to me 
that I had never seen a more beautiful picture of 
poverty. At noon-time I often saw the same 
young girls, sitting in a circle on the ground, taking 
their noonday repast under the shadow of a carob- 
tree. It consisted of half-ripe plums and dry 
bread ; and, when they had eaten this scanty meal, 
they rose, laughing and chattering, and, light as 
gazelles, descended the steps to resume their task. 

If I wished to draw a picture of poverty, the most 
peaceful and cheerful that could be found, I should 
describe it in the person of the fair Costanziella. 
After she has spent a long hot day in transporting 
on her head a whole pyramid of stones from the 
shore up to the old picturesque convent, she reposes 
during the evening in the doorway of her house, 
and refreshes herself with the most beautiful music ; 
for she is an accomplished performer on the jews'- 
harp. She has played for me upon this instrument, 
with inimitable skill and grace, many charming airs, 
— all kinds of sea-fancies, songs of sirens in the Blue 
Grotto, songs without words, strange airs to which 
no mortal has yet given a name. She played them 
all in the most masterly manner; while her dark 
eyes sparkled like a siren's, and her black, rippling 
hair clustered around her forehead as if each lock 
were dancing for pleasure. When Costanziella had 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 37 

finished her concert, she invited me, in the most 
courteous manner, to share with herself and her 
mother the evening meal • the table being spread 
upon the roof above. The repast consisted of ripe 
Indian figs, from the single cactus-tree which grew 
before the house, which she had very skilfully cut 
off with a knife, without wounding her little finger 
with the thorns. Literary subjects we did not dis- 
cuss. Costanziella knew nothing of Schiller and 
Goethe ; of English and French literature she was 
equally ignorant. Her whole literary world con- 
sisted of a few songs from the Bay of Naples. Her 
mother was like a picture to look at, but her con- 
versation was chiefly upon different articles of 
food. Costanziella never ate meat. She carried 
stones all day, and in the evening played upon the 
jews'-harp, while her food consisted of dry bread, 
and potatoes with salt and oil. When I asked her 
whether she had ever in her life eaten roast meat, 
she laughed aloud. But neither Hebe nor Circe, 
nor the Diana of Delos, was fresher or more bloom- 
ing, or possessed a greater wealth of clustering 
curls ; and certainly none of these was more skilful 
upon the jews'-harp. 

In Capri it is a common experience to be asked 
for a Grci7i' or baiocco, or la Butiglia as they call 
it. It is especially the children and young girls 



3& THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

who make this request. I will not call it begging, 
for it is not done in a begging manner. As they 
are poor, it is natural that others who have money 
should give to them ; and, if they receive nothing, 
they say, with a cheerful face, " Addi, Signoria ! " 
You meet this demand at every step. I went one 
day into the schoolhouse at Anacapri ; and the 
whole school at once shouted from the benches, 
" Signore, la Butiglia /" and it seemed as if the 
schoolmaster himself came very near joining in the 
shout. If you enter a house, you may be sure of 
meeting a young girl, who will offer you a Basilicum 
flower or a pink. For this she expects something in 
return. The flower is a pretext for begging. But it 
is not always thus ; for, without this ceremony, they 
ask quite frankly and freely for the Grano. They 
are made happy by a few trifles bought occasion- 
ally from a peddler. They rejoice over pretty things, 
like children ; and one cannot help wishing for the 
treasures of a freedman of Tiberius to- divide them 
among this friendly and grateful people. 

Just now the topic of conversation is a marriage 
between an Englishman and a young girl of Capri. 
A rich Englishman fell so desperately in love with 
a poor young girl of the island, that for her sake 
he became a Catholic. The beautiful child is now 
in a convent at Naples \ but in the autumn she will 



THE ISLAND or CAPRI. 39 

come back as a great lady to her new house on 
Mount Tuoro. The good fortune of the fair Ana- 
rella excites no envy, but the event is looked upon 
as something very extraordinary. Another Eng- 
lishman has also given up his home to settle among 
these mountains. Capri is indeed a most peaceful 
refuge for men who are weary of life, and I know 
no other place in the world where one who has 
suffered shipwreck in the voyage of life may end 
his days so peacefully. This is the testimony also 
of the retired soldiers who live here. 

Three hundred soldiers, either disabled by wounds 
or enfeebled by age, live in the soldiers' quarters at 
one end of the city. They give to the island quite 
the character of an asylum ; for they are to be seen 
sitting or wandering everywhere, and heard singing 
their songs. Some of these are veterans of the time 
of Napoleon ; others date from the revolution of 
1848. These men come from all provinces of the 
kingdom : most of them are blind. As there are 
neither carriages nor horses on the island, they run 
no risk in wandering about alone. They walk 
through the streets without any guide, feeling their 
way along with a stick ; and their blindness is 
scarcely noticeable. At the feast of St. Anna I saw 
a number of them leading the procession. They 
hied into the church one behind the other; and, 



40 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

seeing them, I was reminded of the text, " Blessed 
are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." 
In the evening they enjoyed the fireworks in the 
little square, since they could at least hear the noise 
made by rockets and pin wheels. What a fate ! — to 
be blind upon Capri, where the most enchanting 
prospect in the world lies spread out before you 
with all its wonderful play of color. It seems a 
bitter irony to walk for pleasure here without the 
power of sight. And yet these poor blind men 
walk a great deal, and seem to enjoy it : they have 
in fact a favorite promenade, the only path that is 
somewhat level, namely, the beautiful way through 
the fields, on the outskirts of the Valley of Tragara, 
under the olive-trees. The old men like to sit 
on stone seats in the gateway, listening to the steps 
of those who come in, or even outside of the gate, 
where the view of the bay, and of Naples in the dis- 
tance with Vesuvius, and of the threefold peak of 
Solaro, with the dizzy staircase leading up to it, is 
most enchanting. In the midst of the blue haze of 
noonday, these peaks sparkle with dazzling splen- 
dor ; but in the moonlight they are wrapped in 
glimmering veils of mist of magical beauty. 

These blind soldiers are also fond of music. 
Every evening they, give a concert. Two of them 
sit upon the terrace, before the soldiers' quarters ; 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 41 

one plays on the guitar, another blows upon a set 
of pipes. It is certainly the strangest music that 
was ever heard : it pierces the darkness of the 
night with its clear, wild echoes. Often the mel- 
ancholy notes are accompanied by a song. With the 
same music the soldiers go out upon the piazza in 
the morning. The blind and the seeing, the crippled 
and the straight, all contentedly follow the band of 
their regiment, namely, the guitar-player and pipe- 
blower. And so, upon this hospitable island, even 
physical misfortune seems to be cheered, like pov- 
erty, and reconciled to fate. 

Every thing here has a touch of the childlike ; 
and, even in the faces of the handsome old men and 
women, you perceive this trait of childlike simpli- 
city. Among the children, many, both boys and 
girls, are beautiful as pictures ; and although they 
have grown up wild, and almost wholly untaught, 
their intelligence and quick perception are surpris- 
ing. They each wear an amulet about the neck, 
— the younger ones a little horn, as charm against 
the evil eye ; the elder, a coin with the Madonna 
upon it, or a little picture of the Madonna del Car- 
mine, embroidered upon cloth. 

I once saw the body of a child laid out in the 
church. It lay under a white covering strewed 
with flowers and confectionery. Probably the child 



42 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

had never in his life enjoyed these luxuries : they 
are given to these poor fisher-children only after 
their death. The child was placed, without much 
ceremony, in the crypt of the church, where, ac- 
cording to an old custom, all the dead are buried. 
Only he who was in his life no Christian, that is, 
not a Catholic, receives a lonely grave in some 
beautiful spot above the sea. 

Such are the people of Capri ; and, as the nar- 
row space brings everybody near together, after a 
few days the stranger shares the daily life of the 
inhabitants, and comes into friendly and confiden- 
tial relations with them. Every feeling of strange- 
ness vanishes so entirely, that he shortly falls into 
the habit of considering himself a member of the 
little community. In the tiny piazza by the gate 
all the business of life is carried on in public, — 
the sale of utensils of trade which show how few 
are the wants of the people, the celebration of the 
festivals on saint-days, the every-day enjoyments 
of repose and conversation after working-hours 
are over. Now and then the contemplative soli- 
tude is broken by the arrival of strangers, who take 
rooms at the Inn of Bon Michele : they come to 
visit the curiosities of the island, and then disap- 
pear again. But there is a circle of guests who 
take their meals together at the same table : they 






THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 43 

are, for the most part, artists of different nations ; 
and these guests soon become a characteristic fea- 
ture of the island, for they are everywhere to be 
seen, sitting at their work, — painting one of the 
fascinating little houses, with the arbor of grape- 
vines ; or a rock of fantastic shape ; or perhaps a 
group of trees, or a view of the shore. 

But there is nothing more delightful than to 
stroll about on this beautiful turf, to climb along 
the cliffs, or to walk beside the fragrant sea, where 
the waves rush in, breaking into foam, and the 
seaweed gives out its sharp, almost overpowering 
scent. The silence and loneliness, the wide-spread- 
ing bav, with its far islands and distant shores, is 
wonderfully impressive ; and you can sit for hours 
on the rocks, and watch the play of color in the 
sea and sky. 

I will now r take you with me on an expedition 
around the whole island ; for I am everywhere quite 
at home. First we will go to the place where 
stood the old town of Capri, which has now dis- 
appeared, destroyed by the Saracens. But yonder, 
where the steep rocks of Anacapri abruptly rise 
into the air, are the very last remains of the 
old town of Capri, — the ancient Cathedral of San 
Costanzo still standing, surrounded by gardens. It 
was the oldest parish of the island, and the seat of 



44 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

the bishop ; for Capri was made a bishopric in the 
tenth century, under the rule of the Archbishop of 
Amalfi, and remained so until 1799. After that, 
the bishop's seat was no longer filled ; but the 
Church of Capri was held as a collegiate under the 
Archbishop of Sorrento. 

San Costanzo is small, clumsy-looking, and has 
the character of a village church. Around it old 
walls are still standing. A number of funeral urns, 
bas-reliefs, and old coins, have been found in the 
neighborhood ; and near by, in a vineyard, may 
still be seen a large marble sarcophagus which 
was disinterred some years ago. Since the an- 
tiquities of the island have been the object of 
especial research, a quantity of statues, bas-reliefs, 
mosaics, urns, and remains of pillars, have been 
dispersed, — some of them sold by the peasants 
for trifling sums, some disposed of by commis- 
sioners privately, some secretly abstracted. The 
English also plundered a great deal during their 
three-years' possession of the island, and only the 
smallest portion has been saved for the museum at 
Naples. It seems as if no place in the world had 
been so unfortunate in regard to its antiquities as 
Naples. 

The excavations at Pompeii first directed the at- 
tention of archaeologists to Capri. The first person 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 45 

who searched the island with this object, so far as 
I know, was Luigi Geraldi of Ferrara, in the year 
1777. He was followed by Hadrawa, and in the 
beginning of this century by Romanelli, then by 
Guiseppe Maria Secondo and the Count della 
Torre Rezzonico, all of whom published writings 
upon Capri. In 1830 Feola took charge of the 
excavations, and lived a long time upon the island. 
The ruins also were explored ; and in many places 
were found quite well preserved rooms, and works 
of art of the best Roman period. But, as the in- 
habitants of Capri needed space, the excavations 
were filled in, all traces' of them destroyed, and gar- 
dens laid out over the antiquities. Much, probably, 
remains concealed from the light of day. Pieces of 
marble, and coins of the Roman Empire, are often 
picked up. A good deal of marble is to be seen in 
the pavement of the streets of Capri, and in Ana- 
capri on the Plain of Damecuta. Here and there 
may also be found a slab of marble, with a half- 
effaced inscription, which has served as the sill of a 
house-door. And there are a large number of 
foundations of old houses ; and, wherever you 
wander, some remnant of antiquity breaks in upon 
your dreams and meditations. 

Not far from San Costanzo stood one of the old 
villas of Tiberius, upon a hill close by the sea, and 



46 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

with a wide outlook. It is now called Palazzo a 
Mare. Excavations were made here in 1790 by 
Hadrawa, who found the greater part of the villa 
almost destroyed ; but there were still some inter- 
esting remains, among them two beautiful pillars of 
Cipollino ; two of Porta Santa ; a remarkably fine 
Corinthian capital now in the Museum of Naples ; 
two superb marble floors, of which one was obtained 
by an Englishman, one by the Countess Woronzow ; 
and a beautiful altar of Cybele, which Sir William 
Hamilton succeeded in procuring for the British 
Museum. At present this palace is the picture of 
most utter desolation. Great masses of the walls 
have fallen into the sea ; others strew the slope down 
to the coast ; but a row of chambers may still be 
recognized, and a wall built in a semicircle, per- 
haps the temple of the divinity to whom the villa 
was consecrated. A broken pillar of red Oriental 
granite rises out of the rubbish. 

Yet more scanty are the remains of that villa 
which once crowned the beautiful hill of Castello, 
close by the town, on the southern shore. On the 
side toward the sea it shows itself as a steep wall 
of rock, divided in the middle by a grotto ; on 
the land-side it is surrounded by vineyards ; but 
on top it bears the best preserved fortification of 
Capri ; — a little fort, with battlemented walls and 






THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 47 

towers, which gives a touch of the mediaeval ele- 
ment to the character of the island. Hadrawa 
made excavations here in 1786, and uncovered 
chambers and baths in great number but much 
injured, and found pavements, pillars, a beautiful 
vase of white marble which represents Tiberius 
offering sacrifice, a gem representing Germanicus, 
and other figures in marble and in stucco. These 
objects, also, were sold for a very low price to Ham- 
ilton, to the painter Tischbein, to Prince Schwarz- 
enberg, and to unknown Russians and Englishmen. 
In the year 1791 the excavations were filled up. 
But what are all the treasures of antiquity compared 
with this view from the hill Castello, over the per- 
fect Sicilian Sea, the ever blue Bay of Naples, and 
the majestic outline of the rocks of Anacapri ! 
You overlook from here the steepest declivity of 
the southern shore, and those three abruptly-rising 
cliffs, the rocky obelisks of Capri, which are called 
the Faraglioni. 

At the foot of the hill is one of the most enchant- 
ing spots on the island, — the Piccola Marina, a 
diminutive beach upon the southern coast, sur- 
rounded by scattered rocks, whose black masses 
strew the shore, and form a small peninsula in the 
sea, covered with water. Two fishermen's dwellings 
are hidden away here like cells, built into the rock 



48 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

which gives needful shelter to a few boats. The 
beach is a fantastic freak of nature, and is the only 
one on the whole southern coast of Capri. Sitting 
here, you are entirely lost from the sight of the world. 
The Bay of Naples, with its islands and shores and 
sails, completely disappears, as if it had never been 
heard of; and before the eye the shoreless ocean 
stretches far into the distance, toward Sikelia and 
Africa. There you sit, and gaze out over the bound- 
less sea, and launch, one after the other, the ships 
of fancy for Palermo, Cagliari, and Carthage. All 
about you the desolate wastes of rock have a wild 
and gloomy aspect ; on each side of you are deep 
caves piercing far into the island ; on the right is 
Cape Marcellino, a colossal brown mass of rock 
stretching out into the sea ; on the left, Cape 
Tragara, with peaks and battlements, like a castle 
in a fairy-tale ; and, close by, the strange, cone-like 
peaks of the Faraglioni, — inaccessible cliffs, over a 
hundred feet high, which rise out of the waves like 
pyramids from the Lake of Mceris. All three are 
conical in shape, one of them smooth, as if polished 
by human agency, the others most fantastically cut 
and carved. Their shadows cast a melancholy 
gloom upon the. water; but in the middle of one 
of these rocks is an opening, forming a perfect 
natural arch, and piercing the rock entirely through, 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 49 

so that it gives passage for a boat. Upon the high- 
est points, dwarf trees and wild grasses wave in the 
sea-wind ; and there sits the mew, uttering its hoarse 
cry, or flutters about, teaching its young brood to 
fly. ^ 

If you sit here, you are reminded of that passage 
in the "Prometheus Bound" of ^Eschylus, where 
Prometheus, chained to the rock, suddenly hears 
the fluttering wings of the Oceanides, and the 
sound of their choral song. I have often listened 
to the sea-birds from these cliffs in the sacred hush 
of dawn, when the sea begins to glimmer, and they 
throw themselves from the rocks, and fly over the 
waves, beating the air with their wings in long 
strokes \ or in the evening, when all is still, and 
they sit lonely on the peaks of the Faraglioni, and 
utter their sad, harp-like tones, which produce in 
you a strange, weird sensation. For the song of 
the sea-bird, tuneless as the rush of the waves, and 
like the quivering notes of the ^Eolian harp, 
awakens in you inexplicable longings and desires 
for what is far away. There were on the Faraglioni, 
as I well knew, sea-mews, on a visit from the Island 
of Ustica and from the Grotto Alghero in Sardinia. 
If I had only been twenty years younger, I would 
have asked of them the favor of carrying me over 
the sea to that same wonderful grotto \ or to the 



SO THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

beautiful orange-grove of Milis in Sardinia, where 
grow five hundred thousand orange-trees, and the 
nightingales sing day and night to the blossoms and 
the fruits. I would have asked them to place me 
under the largest orange-tree in Europe, which is 
as large as an oak, and underneath which the 
Marquis Bayl invites his guests to partake of nectar 
and ambrosia. 

See, there is a ship of fancy which has been 
launched and sailed away ! 

But who is there who can lie on this little beach, 
and not indulge in these visions? The wildness of 
this shore-scenery and its desolate character give 
it an irresistible fascination, especially by moon- 
light, or when the sea is disturbed, and the caves 
disappear from sight under the whispering waves ; 
or in the stillness of night, when lights sparkle 
around the reefs and the dark cape, — the torches 
of the fishermen, which now disappear beneath the 
waves, like stars or meteors ; then shine out again, 
here one, and there another; then a third and 
fourth, and now another still, and there again by 
the cape, one after another. 

Only a few fishermen keep their boats here. 
They may be seen sitting upon the white pebbles 
of the shore, mending their nets ; and, in the midst 
of this desolate rocky wilderness, their silent lonely 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 5 1 

occupation has something poetical about it. There 
is a mystery about them, as if they could tell, if 
they chose, of the wonders of the deep, and of 
the sirens that dwell therein. A steep cliff above 
the little beach is called the Rock of the Sirens : the 
fancy of the people always selects the most suitable 
name for each locality. And there is no spot in 
Capri which recalls the sirens more than this. 

Here you can lie for hours on the rocks, almost 
intoxicated by the scent of the sea, watching the 
gold-green water that stirs and ripples underneath, 
glimmers and rustles, like pinions in the silent air. 
The midsummer song of the cicada rings continu- 
ally ; the notes seem to tremble on the air, like float- 
ing bits of sunshine, and like the quivering of the 
heat upon the rocks. Light, air, and perfume per- 
vade all the senses : the mind is satiated with lone- 
liness. 

Between the Faraglioni and the small beach, 
rises, above the blocks of limestone, the arch of 
one of the most spacious grottoes on this coast, 
so rich everywhere in these formations. It is 
called "The Grotto of the Arsenal." It is not 
covered by water, but is a cavern in the earth : 
upon its walls may still be seen vestiges of Roman 
masonry, and traces of rooms are also visible. 
The name of the cave shows clearly that it was 



52 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

formerly a storehouse, perhaps also a dockyard for 
the galleys of Tiberius, for it is high enough for this 
purpose ; and at its entrance may be seen numerous 
marks, as if the stone had been worn away by iron. 
This place is usually called L'Unghia Marina. 
Many remains of old walls are visible here upon 
the rocky shore, as well as on the hills above. 
Ancient walls are also to be seen on Cape Tra- 
gara, around which stand the Faraglioni in the 
water, and the cliff Monacone (Great Monk). 
There must certainly have been a small harbor 
here in the time of Tiberius. Perhaps a covered 
way led from the Villa of Mount Tuoro, situated 
above, directly to the shore, where galleys lay 
ready equipped for flight in case of need ; for, 
even upon this island fortress, the tyrant trembled, 
in constant fear, and had taken every precaution 
to be able to escape by sea at any time. 

Let us disembark at Cape Tragara, and climb the 
hill Tuoro Grande. It is as beautiful here as on 
any peak in Capri. Above the old walls runs a 
telegraph-wire. It is quite remarkable, that on 
almost every mountain-peak of this island of her- 
mits is the cell either of a recluse or of a telegraph- 
operator. The operator of Tuoro Grande sits in a 
small white house. His room has two little win- 
dows ; in one is placed a telescope, in the other 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. S3 

— another telescope. The telegrapher himself — 
a very short, ancient-looking man, whose eyes have 
contracted a habit of blinking from much spying 
through the telescope — sits at a table between 
the two windows, before a large book of records : 
every moment he jumps up, and looks through the 
glass at the window on the left ; then runs to the 
other window, on the right, and looks through 
the other glass ; then he sits down with philo- 
sophic calm to his register, remains seated for a 
time ; then runs again to the windows and the 
telescopes. And so it goes on from morning to 
evening. But his dog sits erect before the door, 
and also gazes over the sea, though without the 
aid of a telescope. And it is arranged as follows : 
High up on Anacapri sits the telegraph-operator, 
in his house on the summit of Solaro, and looks 
out over the Sicilian Sea to see whether any sailing- 
vessels pass by, and, if so, of what kind. If he 
sees any thing remarkable, he sends a message to 
the operator on Mount Tuoro ; this latter despatches 
it at once across the Straits of Capri, to the opera- 
tor of Massa, who sits upon the promontory of 
Minerva, a sleepless watcher of the sea ; he speeds 
the airy tidings with winged haste to Castellamare, 
to the watcher there, learned in signs, interpreter 
of the airy post ; this latter hastens the message 



54 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

on its way to the Castle St. Elmo, above Naples ; 
the watcher of St. Elmo forwards the news to the 
royal Atreus-Castle at Neapolis. So the man upon 
Mount Solaro is the author of these air-wandering 
messages. When this had all been clearly ex- 
pounded to me by the telegrapher, I was reminded 
of the beginning of the " Agamemnon" of^Eschylus, 
where the watchman upon the Castle of Atreus 
looks for the fiery signals which are to give the 
news of the taking of Troy, — 

" OfOLif fiev alrCj tCjv5' una^Tiay^v ttovuv" 
" I pray the gods for deliverance from these toils," — 

and also those words of Clytemnestra, which de- 
scribe in a most wonderfully picturesque manner 
the wandering fire-post. It descends from Mount 
Ida, hastens to the Hermian rocks of Lemnos, 
whence the message of flame is sent on to Athos, 
the mountain of Zeus ; this, in turn, sends the 
golden -bright ray, like a sun, to the beacon of 
Makistos, then hastens the flash of fire over the 
waves of Euripos, rouses the watchers of Mesapios, 
flies onward over the plain of Asopos, falls like 
a ray of moonlight on the rocks of Cithseron, 
sends its light over Lake Gorgopis, reaches at 
last the summit of ^Egiplanctus, then flies over the 
Saronian Sea to the Arachnsen height, and arrives 
finally at the city of the Atreidae. 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 55 

If the Greeks had laid a submarine electric 
cable from Troy, we should have lost from ^Eschy- 
lus this beautiful passage, which is certainly one of 
the most picturesque descriptions ever given by a 
poet. 

Evening had now come. The chief operator of 
Solaro suddenly gave a signal, which he of Tuoro 
sent on to Massa. I asked the far-gazing man 
what news he had communicated. "To-day 
nothing new," he said contentedly, and blinked 
with his eyes, gave a signal to his dog, and stum- 
bled down the mountain. He lives high up on 
Anacapri, and must every evening climb the five 
hundred and sixty steps of the rocky staircase. 
In the morning he again descends five hundred 
and sixty steps ; and, as he has pursued his lonely 
occupation for the last ten years, it may be com- 
puted with mathematical accuracy, that this ex- 
traordinary man has, over and over again, climbed 
the height of Ciiimborazo. He receives only about 
seventy-five cents a day. 

With the exception of this watchman out of ^Es- 
chylus, I found no antiquities upon Mount Tuoro. 
Nevertheless a Villa of Tiberius stood here also. 
Now, between Mount Tuoro and Mount Castello 
lies the valley of Tragara, which is green with vines 
and olive-trees ; upon the edge of it stands the most 



56 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

beautiful mediaeval building of the island, — LaCer- 
tosa, a now deserted convent of monks of the order 
of St. Bruno. This convent occupies a great deal 
of space ; the unique style of its architecture, 
its arcades, bell-towers- adorned with scroll-work, 
its terraces, and row of domed roofs rising from the 
green foliage, stand forth so grotesquely upon the 
background of blue sea, that it is one of the most 
interesting sights which the island affords. The 
church with its slender nave, without tower or 
steeple, is the only building of Capri which possesses 
a Gothic roof covered with red tiles : its straight 
lines are in sharp contrast with the rounded outlines 
of the tiny domed houses used by the monks as 
cells, and with the circular form of the courtyard. 
The inner part is of simple construction, and there 
is a good deal of fresco-painting on the walls. If 
you step through the entrance, the large space 
surrounded by arcades, and forming a cloister, 
has a very pleasing effect. The cells, the little 
courts, the gardens run to waste and covered 
with the most luxuriant growth of weeds, make of 
this deserted cloister a romantic labyrinth. La Cer- 
tosa is consecrated to St. James. It was founded 
in the year 1363 by Giacomo Arcucci, a noble 
inhabitant of Capri. His wife had remained long 
childless, like Sarah ; and he had taken a vow to 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 57 

build a convent, if Heaven should grant him a son. 
Heaven speedily took the man at his word, and 
granted his wish : so he built this convent, after the 
plan of that magnificent La Certosa of San Martino 
on the hill Vomero, above Naples. In the year 
1374, the building being finished, monks from San 
Martino went thither. With time, La Certosa be- 
came rich, and the best land in Capri belonged to 
the monks. But the Parthenopeian Republic closed 
this convent, and two others in Capri dedicated 
to St. Theresa ; and their property was confiscated. 
At present this property has been granted to the 
Cathedral of Ischia : so the poor people of Capri 
suffer the great injustice that their best landed 
property is taken from them to support the lazy 
priesthood of another island. While the English 
held possession of Capri, this convent was the 
headquarters of Sir Hudson Lowe, and, when under 
the control of the French, was used for military 
purposes : it is now about to be transformed into 
a soldier's hospital. 

In the valley of Tragara, remains of antique walls 
may be seen, and this is supposed by archaeologists 
to be the site of the old gymnasium, and of the 
Villa Julia, which Augustus is said to have built in 
honor of his much-loved daughter ; but these are all 
uncertain conjectures. Yes, there is not one of 



58 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

these great ruins which run out in a curved line far 
beyond Tragara, toward Tuoro Grande, that allow 
of certain recognition. They are called Camerelle, 
like similar remains in the Villa of Hadrian at 
Tivoli. They are built very strongly and securely, 
partly of bricks, and partly of the limestone of 
Capri, and show remains of wings running out, and 
containing rcws of chambers, whose arches may 
still be recognized. I think the opinion of Rosario 
Mangone may be sustained, which is, that these 
Camerelle formed a street which led to the Villa of 
Tiberius. They were divided into three parts : 
one must have led up to Monte Tuoro, one to the 
Villa San Michele, and the third to the Villa of 
Zeus. 

Above the Camerelle rises the beautifully formed 
hill of San Michele, one of the most enchanting 
heights on the island, from the summit of which 
may be enjoyed the finest view of the city lying 
below. Above it rises Fort Castello, and high 
above this the sharp peaks of Solaro ; on both 
sides green valleys, and the hyacinth-colored sea. 
That upon the summit of San Michele stood one 
of the most magnificent palaces cf Tiberius, the 
exquisite situation renders indisputable. At the 
foot of the mountain are still to be seen mighty 
ruins, rows of vaulted chambers, doubtless the sub- 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 59 

structure of the gently-rising street. Above, on the 
plateau, are gardens and vintages, whose floors give 
forth a hollow sound, showing that under these, also, 
are vaulted chambers. There are also to be seen 
Roman walls in reticulated work, and several old 
rooms. One of these shows signs of being the 
chapel dedicated to St. Michael, from which the 
mountain receives its name. To-day a little church 
dedicated to this saint stands quite alone on the 
mountain, and attracts notice from the unique 
character of its Moorish architecture. Surrounded 
by a wall, and forsaken, among broken remnants 
of scattered stone, it recalls the ruins of Mecca. 

There have been some researches at San Michele, 
although the excavations are not here very dili- 
gently carried on. The peasants have terraced the 
whole of the side of the mountain toward the land, 
and planted it with olive-trees. The houses of the 
town are built so close to the rocks, that from the 
mountain you can step clown upon the roofs. One 
evening I took my way homeward from the moun- 
tain, looking for a path, and at last climbed down 
upon a roof, and from the roof, through the rooms 
of the house, into the street. 

The eastern coast of the island rises to the height 
of nine hundred and seventy feet, and plunges per- 
pendicularly into the sea : upon this highest point 



60 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

is the Villa of Zeus. Here the whole shore assumes 
a character of most striking and impressive wild- 
ness. If you go from Tuoro Grande, through the 
little valley of Matromania, toward the south-west 
side of the island, you come to a place where the 
coast contracts suddenly, forming a very acute 
angle. Here is a fantastic forest of jagged rocks, 
which strew the shore in wild confusion. In the 
midst is a rock which divides into a perfect natural 
arch. Next to the Blue Grotto, this is the most 
striking natural phenomenon of the island. Deep 
below is the sea in black shadow ; high above, 
the beautiful sky ; around, the red-brown cliffs ; 
across the sea, the Cape of Minerva and the high 
coast of Amalfi and Salerno, like some creation of 
magic. 

We now descend by a steep path to a deep, 
beautiful, and dreamy grotto upon the shore, — the 
mysterious Grotto of Matromania. The entrance 
is through a semicircular archway of great breadth, 
for the cave is about fifty-five feet in breadth and a 
hundred feet in depth. The work of nature, it is 
nevertheless modified by the hand of man. At the 
entrance are to be seen remnants of Roman wall, 
and within, traces of Roman masonry still cling to 
the rock. In the lowest part rise one above the 
other, in semicircles, two rows of stone-work, like 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRT. 6l 

tiers of seats ; in the middle are steps, leading 
apparently to the niche of the god whose image 
was placed here. All bears witness that the interior 
of a temple lies before you. The name Matromania, 
which the grotto bears, and which the people have 
with unconscious irony transformed into Matrimonio, 
as if Tiberius had here held wedding-ceremonies, 
may be derived from Magnae Matris Antrum, or 
perhaps from Magnum Mithrae Antrum. 

It is said that the temple was dedicated to 
Mithras • not so much because the Persian sun-god 
was supposed to be worshipped in caves, as because 
in this grotto was found one of those bas-reliefs 
which represent the mysterious sacrifices to Mithras, 
and of which a great number are in the Vatican 
Museum. I saw two of these in studios at Naples : 
one had been found in the Grotto of Pausilippo, 
the other in Matromania ; they represent Mithras, 
in Persian garments, kneeling upon a bull, into 
whose throat he plunges the sacrificial knife, while 
serpents, scorpions, and dogs attack and wound 
the animal. There seems nothing contrary to prob- 
ability in finding a temple to Mithras in this grotto. 
It is well adapted for the mystical rites of sun- 
worship, for it looks toward the east ; and whoever, 
from its depths, beholds the sun-god rise above the 
distant hills, and sees his purple light upon the near 



62 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

and distant mountains and the waves, may well 
become a sun-worshipper. 

The wild and romantic situation of the grotto, 
the ruins of the old temple, the mysterious repre- 
sentation of the worship of Mithras, the holy 
silence, the twilight dimness, the sound of trickling 
drops of water, finally the wide, impressive pros- 
pect stretching far over sea and land, unite to thrill 
the heart with a sensation of awe ; and even he 
who has never heard of the worship of Mithras, 
nor the traditions of Tiberius, feels himself here in 
the presence of a mystery. 

In this cave of mystery was found a mysterious 
treasure, — a marble tablet with a Greek inscription 
which runs thus : — 

" Ye kind demons who dwell in the Stygian land, 
Receive me also, me unhappy, into Hades; 
For not by the command of Mo:ra, by the power of the 

ruler, 
Was I suddenly struck with death, which, innocent, I did 

not fear. 
The emperor was still loading me with gifts ; 
But he has now refused hope to me and to my parents. 
I have not attained twenty years ; no, not fifteen. 
Alas ! and I see no more the light of the shining day; 
Hypatos is my name : I call to thee, my brother; 
My parents, I mourn unto you. Oh, weep no longer, ye 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 6$ 

Of what dreadful deed do these mysterious words 
tell through the epitaph of a boy? Herein is 
hinted a romance of Capri. The fate of the poor 
Hypatos is hidden from the world, and yet I know 
it. Under the influence of his demon, Tiberius 
sacrificed his favorite to the sun, here in this cave, 
here before this altar. So Hadrian later sacrificed 
the beautiful Aritinous to the Nile. For these were 
the days of human sacrifice : though not made in 
large numbers, they were still customary, and were 
usually performed in honor of Mithras. 

Yes, if this cave could open its mouth, and these 
stern cliffs begin to speak, they would relate grim 
stories of those ancient times. Tradition has situ- 
ated upon this wild shore the customary dwelling 
of Tiberius, and laid here the scene of his fearful 
pleasures. It is the fiend-haunted place of the 
island. If you climb higher up on the southern 
shore, you come to a spot which is called Salto di 
Tiberio, the Leap of Tiberius. The shore here 
rises eight hundred feet perpendicularly out of the 
sea. From this point, so says tradition, the emper- 
or was accustomed to throw his victims into the sea, 
and there is no doubt that it was the same place 
shown as a curiosity in the time of Suetonius ; for 
what is so frightful is never easily blotted from the 
human mind. Suetonius says, " In Capri is shown 



64 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

the place of his murders ; where, in his own pres- 
ence, he caused those whom he had sentenced to 
death to be thrown into the sea, after protracted 
and exquisite tortures. A number of sailors were 
stationed below to receive the bodies, and beat 
them with oars and sailyards, until life became 
extinct. " There is a kind of horrible pleasure in 
rolling stones down this steep declivity, which has- 
ten in frightful leaps from point to point, and make 
the rocks resound with the thunder of their fall. 

A few steps from this dreadful " Leap," there 
now stands a little house. Over the door is writ- 
ten the word, " Restaurant." In the room within 
stands, at every hour of the day, a table covered 
with fruit, bread, and flasks filled with the Tears of 
Tiberius. The innkeeper who has established this 
place of entertainment has also enclosed w r ith a 
little wall the small beach at the foot of the Salto, 
and now offers to visitors this fearful sight, as it 
were, upon a salver. 

This house is on the way to the old lighthouse of 
Capri, distant hardly thirty steps from the Salto. 
It has now fallen to ruin, with the exception of the 
massive quadrangular substructure of calcined 
stone. A few years since, the upper part was 
struck by lightning, and thrown down. All around 
lie pieces of the walls, covering the ground to quite 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 65 

a distance, and scattered among the grape-vines. 
These and the ruins that still remain, which also 
show traces of a roof supported by arches, prove 
that the lighthouse was once a magnificent struc- 
ture. It rivalled the lighthouse of Alexandria, and 
the towers of Ravenna and Puteoli. The poet 
Statius calls it "The rival of the night-piercing 
moon." According to Suetonius, this lighthouse 
was thrown down by an earthquake a few days 
before the murder of Tiberius ; but it must have 
been rebuilt, otherwise Statius would not have 
mentioned it. Its height to-day is scarcely sixty 
feet. In the year 1804 Hadrawa undertook exca- 
vations near the lighthouse. He found there 
traces of a subterranean staircase, a quantity of 
specimens of marble, and that bas-relief which 
represents the mourning figures of Lucilla and 
Crispina. 

Climbing a few steps higher, we now arrive at 
the renowned Villa of Zeus. According to Sueto- 
nius, this was the customary dwelling of Tiberius ; 
and he expressly says that the tyrant kept himself 
shut up there for nine months after the execution 
of Sejanus, from fear of a conspiracy. There is no 
doubt that the ruins on the highest north-east shore 
of the island, the Capo, belong to this villa. This 
fact rests not only on the authority of tradition, but 



66 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

is also inferred from the size of the palace, these 
ruins being the most extensive on Capri ; also from 
the commanding situation, and especially from 
their being among the finest remains which have 
been preserved from the time of ancient Rome. 
Here you may wander in a labyrinth of arched 
passages and subterranean galleries, countless 
chambers now used for vintages or cow-stalls. 
Capitals, pediments, architraves, marble steps, lie 
around in fragments. A few isolated rooms have 
still the remains of stucco-work, and decorations in 
the deep yellow or dark red of Pompeii may still 
be recognized. Some of the floors still retain their 
mosaic of white bits of marble with black borders, 
and here and there staircases to the rooms below 
are well preserved. 

The villa appears to have been built in several 
stories, the lowest of all still covered with earth 
not yet excavated. The upper part surprises the 
beholder by the yet well-preserved plan of its 
rooms, which, on the side toward the water, form a 
semicircle, perhaps around a theatre. Niches and 
circular walls, however, suggest a temple. This 
villa unites every thing that belongs to the tran- 
scendent magnificence of royal life ; and since it 
was so long the seat of the emperor, before any 
buildings by Nero or Hadrian existed, must have 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 6 J 

surpassed in splendor all the other villas of Rome. 
Add to this the incomparable situation, above the 
straits, where the two bays lie spread out before the 
eye. Here sat Tiberius, like an eagle in his eyry, ? 
beholding every thing that passed upon the island, 
and also the ships that entered the bay, coming 
from Greece, Asia, Africa, or Rome. The view 
from the water, sailing between Capri and the Cape 
of Minerva, must also have been superb, — here the 
marble palaces and the lighthouse, there the beau- 
tiful temples ; for Tiberius looked out upon that 
promontory which is to-day crowned by a tower, 
and beheld both the far-renowned Temples of 
Minerva and of the Sirens, and the Temple of 
Heracles. 

I sat for many hours among these ruins, and in 
my imagination restored the Capri of the ancients. 
What a vision ! — to behold allthese heights adorned 
with marble palaces, and the beautiful island cov- 
ered with temples, arcades, statues, theatres, pleas- 
ure-groves, and promenades. And what a picture 
it would be, might the forms of the Romans them- 
selves become visible, walking in the streets ! — the 
court of an emperor, senators, ambassadors from 
every part of the world, the beautiful women of 
Ionia and Asia, a wild swarm of bacchantes, 
nymphs, and gods, a whole heathen mythology of 



68 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

fantastic figures ; for here lived Bacchus, and his 
court was one of bacchantes and satyrs. 

If you are familiar with the subject of a portrait, 
the painting itself assumes an air of reality. Very 
fine busts and colossal statues of Tiberius may be 
seen in Naples ; but the best are to be found in the 
Vatican Museum. I have remarked that the por- 
trait-busts of Tiberius that are in Rome represent 
him in earlier life ; those of Naples, in his later 
years, apparently because most of the busts of the 
emperor which were dug up in Herculaneum and 
Pompeii belong to the period of his residence upon 
Capri. There is in the Vatican, in the Museo 
Chiaramonti, a colossal figure of Tiberius, which 
was found in Veii. It represents him as a youth- 
ful hero of ideal beauty, with features which seem 
to have been carefully copied from life ; the head 
nobly formed and very spirited, the mouth exceed- 
ingly delicate and beautiful. The features resemble 
those of the youthful Bacchus ; and there is a luxu- 
riant roundness of the body and limbs which give 
to it almost a feminine character. This moral 
monster was in his day, like Caesar Borgia, the 
handsomest man on earth. Of all the emperors of 
Rome, Augustus is the only one who surpasses him 
in classic beauty. Once seen, the head of Tiberius 
can never be forgotten. You expect to behold the 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 69 

distorted face of a demon, and are amazed at the 
delicacy and feminine character of the features, 
which might belong to a Sardanapalus. In old age, 
however, there seems to have come a fine, sharp 
line of scorn and scepticism drawn about the mouth ; 
and the expression acquires something of wilful- 
ness, hard secretiveness, even of vulgarity. This is 
seen in the colossal head at Naples, and the busts 
in the Capitol. But, for the sight of animal wicked- 
ness embodied in marble, we must go to the fiend- 
like head of Caracalla, the most perfect expression 
of diabolical wickedness that the hand of the sculp- 
tor has ever portrayed. 

I think that this terrible man was only a frightful 
judgment, which the history of the world has con- 
firmed. He was the first monarch, with the excep- 
tion of Augustus, who governed in the form of a 
republic. He received as an inheritance a de- 
praved humanity. Himself appointed to evil, he 
came into an evil world, and, like Satan and his 
angels, was destroyed with it. Caligula had the 
insane desire of becoming ruler of the whole 
earth, and lived only a few years. That is not 
to be wondered at • for chance, in one day, cast 
at the feet of these men the earth, with all its 
pleasures. Therefore they became insane : they 
wished to swallow the whole world at a mouthful, 



70 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

like an egg. After the period of civil wars, and 
the Augustan age, an awful silence came over the 
world, the most dreary pause in the history of 
mankind, while the Old World irretrievably de- 
cayed. Augustus was great and fortunate, because 
he conquered his power ; his successors were 
wretched, because they had no object for which 
to strive. Placed suddenly in possession of the 
long-desired imperial power, they knew not what 
to do with their days ; for pleasure becomes un- 
bearable when it is not varied by privation, and 
seasoned with fatigue. Caligula, in his madness, 
wished to build a bridge over the sea. Nero set 
fire to Rome, and played on his lute while it was 
burning ; he wrote verses, and wished to be distin- 
guished as a charioteer and a comedian. In every 
period of decay, we find, in succession, Tiberius, 
Caligula, Claudius, Nero, — demons and madmen, 
— for the revolving wheel of history is always turn- 
ing. Nature would be too diabolical did she create 
such monsters, one after another, without reason, 
and according to an idle chance. 

But it would be doing injustice to Tiberius to 
confound him with his successors. These were 
simply coarse villains, who, throwing away every 
disguise, exposed openly their bestial nature. 
Tiberius, superior in mind to his contemporaries, 






THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 71 

was a man of clear head, a finished diplomatist, of 
the school of the hypocrite Augustus ; so subtle, so 
veiled is his face, with a silent, watchful expression, 
as if lying in wait for an adversary, and with a 
crafty, Jesuitical look about the mouth : seldom 
has Nature formed a more perfect diplomatist's 
mouth. These firmly-closed lips bring to mind 
the mot of Talleyrand, that the object of speech is 
to conceal the thought. But we know from Tacitus 
what was the skill of Tiberius in the art of speech. 
Tiberius invented the grammar and logic of di- 
plomacy. This man did not promise, did not 
swear, did not lie, but was himself an incarnate false- 
hood. How clumsy, beside this subtle, classic 
despot, appear the rulers of later times ! — ad- 
venturers who boldly take possession of thrones 
by means of falsehood, and kings who rudely break 
their oaths. Tiberius would have dismissed them 
to his freedmen, with a contemptuous smile. This 
man never allowed any one to suspect his inten- 
tions, for then he would have encountered oppo- 
sition. He never met circumstances face to face, 
nor struck a straightforward blow ; he surrounded 
his adversaries ; his will and his intention were 
always doubtful, seen in a kind of dim twilight. 
Read, in witness thereof, the masterly account of 
the fall of Sejanus. 



72 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

The man of Elba has warmly defended the 
character of Tiberius, and has thus taken him 
under his protection in opposition to the judgment 
of Tacitus and that of history. 

After Tiberius had refined the diplomacy of 
Augustus to a system of Jesuitism, his work was 
completed, and he retired to this villa, to drown 
in pleasure the weariness of life. He sank into 
idle voluptuousness. Fear, which he had himself 
established as a ruling power in government, would 
not allow him to die. He exhausted every variety 
of pleasure ; but human nature is so constituted, 
that it can enjoy pleasure only for a short time. 
This is the lesson we learn from this rocky Capri 
and this Villa of Zeus, to which the ruler of the 
world exiled himself, having learned to look upon 
this sojourn only as a banishment. Think what 
scenes the walls of these chambers have wit- 
nessed! what brutal orgies of unrestrained vio- 
lence ! Within these very walls, which once 
echoed to the sweet notes of the Lydian flute 
and the soft laughter of beautiful women, now 
pasture the cattle of poor peasants, and the halls 
of Tiberius are to-day the portion of the ivy and 
wild fig-tree. Mallows, roses, and pomegranates 
grow in tangled masses in these ruined chambers ; 
grape-vines, the descendants of the ancient Bac- 






THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 73 



chus of Capri, flutter and dance in the wind, as 
if they were the spirits of those beautiful women 
who formerly danced here before Tiberius. 

A little way above stands a chapel to Santa 
Maria del Soccorso : it is on the highest point 
of the Villa, and built directly upon the ruins. 
Here dwells a hermit. There is no place in the 
world so adapted for self mortification as the ruins 
of this Villa of Tiberius, under whose reign, and 
during whose life upon Capri, Christ was slain 
upon the cross. The chapel stands here, like 
Christianity itself, upon the ruins of the heathen 
world, whose sins it expiated. This is a strange 
combination, and there is a strong temptation to 
linger, wrapped in thought, in a place so full of 
suggestions ; for here rise before our imagination 
two figures, contemporaries, representing each a 
different period of the world, — here in the West, 
the hoary demon, Tiberius, the ruler of the earth, 
representative of the decaying world of heathen- 
dom, and the type of its moral ruin ; in the East, 
the youthful ideal image of Jesus nailed to the 
cross, but surrounded by the inspired prophets of 
a new dawn of life. These two figures stand op- 
posed to each other, like Ahriman and Ormuzd, 
the gods of Light and of Darkness. 

How you also recall here the image of John of 



74 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

Patmos, intoxicated with light, with the eagle of 
Zeus ; still used as one of the heathen emblems. 

Sunk in these observations and reflections upon 
the early youth of Christianity, I was standing 
among these ruins, when, behold, I suddenly be- 
came aware of an apparition, in strong contrast 
with the character of that pure, spiritual religion, in 
the shape of a dirty Fransciscan hermit, so that I 
almost started back on beholding the man, — an 
old monk, with a long white beard, a black cowl, 
and a club-foot, limping, ugly, with greedy eyes. It 
was as if I saw Tiberius before me in the char- 
acter of Mephistopheles, and heard him say with 
a satirical laugh, " Redivivus ! only changed a 
little. This is the history of Christendom." 

The club-foot limped before me into his cell. I 
looked over his books, and read on one of them 
this title, " Legends of the Holy Virgins, who died 
for Our Lord Jesus Christ." He showed me the 
copy of a bas-relief which is to be found in the 
museum at Naples : it represents the undraped 
figure of an old man upon a horse ; before him 
sits a young girl with a torch ; a naked youth leads 
the horse toward the statue of a god. The resem- 
blance of the rider to Tiberius is so striking, that 
you might suppose this bas-relief to represent a 
scene out of his life at Capri, perhaps a sacrifice 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 75 

to Priapus ; but the chain around the neck of the 
figure is exactly the same as that worn by the 
dying gladiator and other Gauls, so that it cannot 
be intended to represent the Emperor Tiberius. 
The hermit had copied this bas-relief in water- 
color with wonderful diligence and with evident 
pleasure. It is the especial property of this place, 
for it was dug up under the ruins of this villa. 
Twice these ruins have been explored, but each 
time incompletely, — in the year 1804 by Hadra- 
wa, and in 1827 by Feola. Beautiful pavements 
of marble were found, one of which is preserved 
before the altar in the principal church of Capri ; 
many pillars of great value, — one small one of 
lapis lazuli, which was bought at auction by an 
Englishman ; statues, which have been all scattered 
or lost ; and mosaics, which are preserved in the 
museum at Naples. 

There is not an emperor in the world who can 
boast of a dwelling with a more superb view than 
the cell of this hermit. His windows overlook the 
bays of Naples and of Salerno, and the beautiful 
Italian shores and islands. There is nothing that 
can be compared with the view of the whole near 
promontory of Minerva : it is like the most ex- 
quisite carving ; behind it may be seen the beauti- 
ful mountain-range of Sant' Angelo, and the whole 



76 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

shore of Amalfi and Salerno beyond, foreshortened, 
like the scenery of an immense theatre, as far as 
Paestum, curve after curve, in a magnificent sweep. 
Through the clear air I could see Paestum far over 
the sea, then Castele Baro and Punta Licosa, across 
miles of distance. At sunset the play of rainbow 
colors upon the mountains is of enchanting beauty ; 
and it seemed often as if the prospect before me 
could not be reality, but the radiant creation of a 
dream. 

One evening I sat among the ruins of the villa, 
feasting my gaze upon the far-reaching view of this 
promontory, when my glance fell upon the silver- 
white skin of a serpent, which had been recently 
stripped off, and lay at my feet. I received it as a 
supernatural gift, — a link uniting me in strange 
ominous fashion with those bygone days. I re- 
membered that Tiberius owned a favorite serpent 
which he fed, and with which he amused himself. 
I descended the mountain with my prize ; then 
came after me Mephistopheles, riding upon an ass. 
I showed the serpent-skin to the monk, and learned 
from this incident that this mysterious man was an 
accomplished serpent-charmer. He told me that 
he. could capture serpents alive, at any time and 
place that he chose. I asked him how he man- 
aged this. " After ordering them to lie still," he 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 77 

said, ■ ■ I grasp them ; then they wind about my 
arm. I enclose them in a jar, and send them to 
Naples, to the apothecary." — "But how can you 
order them to lie still?" He answered, with a 
satanic smile, " I say a word or two in their ear, 
and mention the name of St. Paul, and they at 
once lie perfectly still." — " Can you not tell me 
the charm," I asked, " so that I, also, may have 
power over serpents?" — "No," said he. "I re- 
ceived it from an old hermit, and promised, with 
a solemn oath, never to impart it." When I 
asked what the name of St. Paul had to do with 
the charm, he replied that Paul was the patron 
saint of serpents, and that every animal had its 
patron saint. When the monk told me that, I 
asked what were the patron saints of all the ani- 
mals that creep and coil. St. Gertrude is the 
patroness of lizards : this caused me to give her a 
high place in my esteem ; for I am very fond of 
lizards, there is something so graceful, so maidenly, 
about them, and they lisp so charmingly with their 
little tongues. St. Anthony is the patron of fishes, 
St. Agatha of lions, St. Agnes of lambs. 

So I was right in my conjecture that this hermit 
practised the black art ; and I am disposed to 
believe that he follows other unholy pursuits in the 
moonlight, among the ruins or on the cliffs, seeking 
herbs, roots, and poisonous snakes. 



78 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

All this time we have forgotten that there is 
upon the island another little town, — Anacapri. 
This is no wonder ; for one may live below, upon 
Capri, seeing and hearing nothing of Anacapri, 
nature has so entirely cut off all communication 
between the towns. You see of it only the steep, 
rocky steps which lead up thither, and they have 
small attraction, since the fatigue of mounting 
them is great ; and it is a noticeable fact, of which 
you will not easily find another example, that here 
upon one small island are two towns — distant 
hardly a quarter of an hour's walk, if they had been 
upon level ground — so entirely separated from 
each other, that the inhabitants rarely meet, seldom 
take part in each other's festivals, and even speak 
a different dialect. 

Tradition relates, that the foundation of Ana- 
capri was due to Love. In former days a youthful 
pair fled from the lower city, climbed the steep 
rocks to the upper part of the island, and there 
built themselves an asylum in the bushes, high up 
at the foot of Solaro ; since then, they have been 
followed by other lovers. And so, i:i due time, 
arose, under the protection of the god of Love, 
this colony which is called Anacapri. 

And still, at this very day, winged Love flies, like 
a mountain eagle, back and forth from Capri to 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 79 

Anacapri, and lends his wings to any youth who 
loves one of those wild and beautiful maidens 
who sit high up, in their little houses, at their 
looms, and sing songs of love and enchantment, 
like Circe in the Odyssey. 

Thus is Anacapri separated from the lower part 
of the island ; so that the only approach to it is by 
the steep Jacob's Ladder of five hundred and sixty 
steps. For the rocks rise suddenly from Lower 
Capri, steep and perpendicular as walls, and take 
the wildest shapes, forming a sort of gigantic nat- 
ural wall, over which, like the roof of a basilica, 
rises Mount Solaro, and bears upon its slopes the 
town of i\nacapri and its secluded cloistered inhab- 
itants, like a race of hermits. The steps, cut in the 
solid rock, take a zigzag course upward, and end 
above upon the platform. This wonderful woik is 
ascribed to remote antiquity, when the Phoenicians 
or the Greeks founded the upper city ; for it is 
only in this spot that any communication with the 
lower city is possible. Traces of the oldest steps 
may be seen. Halfway up the staircase stands the 
odd little Chapel of St. Antony, where the traveller 
may stop to take breath ; for he cannot mount to 
this height without becoming exhausted. But the 
incomparable view from the platform called Capo 
di Monte amply rewards him for his trouble ; for 



8o THE ISLAND OF CAPRL 






here is visible the enormous rock, with its broad 
front and waving trees, like the hanging-gardens of 
Semiramis, rising high into the air above, and plun- 
ging into the dizzy depths below ; and beneath it the 
picturesque view of Lower Capri and of both seas. 
Higher yet above this platform rises Solaro, some 
hundreds of feet, covered with desolate gray rock, 
and bears upon its steep declivity the beautiful 
ruins of Castel Barbarossa, which received its name 
from the distinguished corsair who once laid Capri 
desolate. 

If you go a few steps farther upon the platform, 
a new and foreign world opens before the. eye. 
Lower Capri has altogether disappeared, and you 
enter a retreat of the most enchanting and bewil- 
dering beauty. Mount Solaro, almost the exact 
counterpart of Monte Pellegrino of Palermo, rises 
in a high peak before you ; it is bare, waste, and 
brown, and strewed with countless bowlders of rock. 
Toward the west and north, it slopes down toward 
the largest plain that the island possesses ; and upon 
this steep slope lies Anacapri, high above the sea, 
among green trees and flowering shrubs. This lit- 
tle town also appears to consist of hermits' cells ; 
for the small houses, built in the most unique style, 
stand separated from each other in the midst of 
gardens. And here is a greater growth of trees than 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. Si 

in Capri, olive-trees, especially, and many grape- 
vines, which, in the Campanian fashion, twine around 
the trunks of the trees, clinging with their tendrils. 
The air is pure and invigorating ; but the sun is even 
more powerful on this sloping plain than elsewhere 
on the island. At the sight of this picturesque 
and indescribable little town, — the strange wastes 
of rock above it, burned by the sun, the calm and 
stillness of the blue, boundless ocean, stretching 
far away into the distance, — there comes over you 
a strong desire to bid the world farewell, and, plant- 
ing in the earth the pilgrim staff, build here a her- 
mit's cell. 

The silence is yet deeper here than in Capri. Not 
a man is visible, only women, ringing at their work, 
sitting before the door, at their loom or wheel, 
twisting the yellow silk upon the spindle, or dig- 
ging in the garden, or gathering the mulberry- 
leaves for the silkworms, or coming and going with 
a pitcher of water on their heads ; for the men are 
all away. Since in summer so many young men 
go for coral to Africa or to Corsica, only women 
are to be seen in the city ; and it is as if you were 
among the women of Lemnos, who sit manless 
upon their rocks, weaving forever their endless webs. 

On the days and hours when the boats are 
expected from Naples, I often found a number of 



82 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

young girls sitting on the steps, sometimes more 
than thirty, many of them of singular beauty. 
They sat gossiping upon the stones, looking for 
the approaching sail, to be ready to go down to 
the shore and meet the boat. I sometimes seated 
myself among them, and looked not less eagerly 
across the bay for the white sail, thinking it might 
bring for me a letter into this solitude. Almost 
every one of the young girls had a few flowers in 
her hand, or a spray of basilicum, as a graceful 
method of asking alms. Antoniella had the most 
beautiful bouquet of all, — basilicum, pinks, deep- 
red roses, and myrtles, tied and adorned with 
bows of bright-colored ribbon. This bouquet was 
the token of our friendship, and the key to the 
most charming house in Anacapri, where I have 
passed many an hour with these simple children 
of Nature. Antoniella did her weaving in a room 
opening on the garden, in the green shadow of 
grape-vines, and oleanders in full flower ; and she 
was quick and skilful as the spinner Arachne. 
Pier elder sister sat near, weaving a piece of white 
cotton ; but hers was of many gay colors. She did 
not know how to play upon the jew's-harp, but was 
so much the more skilful with the ringing tam- 
bourine. Her brothers were away upon the sea. 
The industry of these girls, who are all employed in 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. S3 

weaving, is astonishing. As soon as the sun rises, 
they are seated at the loom, and, with few interrup- 
tions, continue to weave until sunset, — and this 
from one year's end to the next. It is true that 
they are not obliged to carry burdens, like their 
island-sisters in Capri, except when the rain-water 
in the cisterns gives out : then they must descend 
the steps, and bring water in vessels from Capri, 
where flow four slender springs. They all wear orna- 
ments of gold and coral, and silver arrows in their 
hair ; and that girl would be thought unfortunate 
indeed, who did not possess any such treasure. 

There is, belonging to the town, a beautiful 
Campo Santo, full of flowers and of cypress-trees. 
But the greatest glory of the inhabitants of Ana- 
capri is its so-called Earthly Paradise ; namely, the 
floor of the church, on whose stones paradise is 
represented in enamel, — a well-executed work of 
the seventeenth century, by Chiaese. Here, also, 
the architecture is of the fantastic Moorish style, 
and very striking. The farm-houses are also 
charming, each with its pergola attached. There 
are but few relics of Tiberius in Anacapri. The 
cultivation of the grape has caused them to be all 
ploughed up, and there were originally fewer here 
than in Capri. The most important and interest- 
ing ruins are m the plain of Damecuta, — a beauti- 



84 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

ful region which slopes gently toward the coast, 
and on the shore of which is the Blue Grotto. It 
is noticeable, that, in spite of its height, Upper 
Capri has a lower shore than Lower Capri \ for the 
mountain, with its lofty peaks, sinks in a gradual 
slope toward the sea, both on the west and en the 
north. Notwithstanding, the shore is not accessible, 
either by boat or by the foot of man, — beachless, 
harborless, and bringing to the shipwrecked sailor 
only certain destruction. 

The Tower of Damecuta happens to be placed 
where it points out the situation of the now world- 
renowned Blue Grotto. My host, Michele, told 
me, at length, the history of the day this discovery 
was made : he himself, then a boy, was of the ex- 
pedition. It was his father, Guiseppe, now dead, 
August Kopisch, the artist Fries, and a sailor 
named Angelo Ferraro, who undertook to pene- 
trate into the grotto. All are now dead : only 
Michele remains to tell the history of the 
covery. An uncle of Pagano, then a priest 
Capri, warned the party to abstain from the enter- 
prise ; since the cave was the abode of evil spirits, 
and many sea-monsters made it their home. The 
entrance was also very difficult ; since, at the time 
of the discovery, there was not a single small boat 
upon the island. Angelo effected an entrance wit! 



i dis- 
upon 



' 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 85 

the aid of a cask. Kopisch and Fries swam. My 
host described to me in the most graphic manner 
the tumultuous joy of both artists when they were 
fairly inside of the grotto. Fries, he said, was so 
beside himself with delight, that he swam in and 
out, shouting and hurrahing. August Kopisch 
could not rest until he had hastened to Naples, 
and brought his friends back with him ; and he 
kept going back and forth on this errand. Pagano 
preserves, like a relic, an old register of visitors, in 
which, under the date Aug. 17, 1826, Kopisch has 
written the following account of the discovery : — 
" To all lovers of the beauties and wonders of 
nature, I here give notice of the grotto discovered, 
from information given by our host Guiseppe 
Pagano, by Flerr Fries, said Guiseppe Pagano, 
and myself, which has for centuries not been 
entered, on account of superstitious fears. At 
present, the entrance is practicable only for a 
good swimmer. If the sea is perfectly quiet, it is 
possible to make the entrance in a small boat ; but 
this is dangerous, since the slightest breeze would 
render egress impossible. We have named this 
grotto * The Blue Grotto,' because the light passing 
through the deep sea- water lights up the whole 
chamber with a blue color. It is a remarkable 
phenomenon, the water seeming to fill the grotto 



86 THE ISLAND OF CAPRT. 

with blue fire. Every wave appears like a flame. 
At the back part of the grotto is an old passage 
leading into the rock, perhaps to the Tower of 
Damecuta, above, where tradition reports that 
young maidens were formerly imprisoned by Tibe- 
rius ; and it is possible that this grotto was his 
secret landing-place. Until now, only a sailor and 
a donkey-leader have had the courage to under- 
take this enterprise, since all kinds of fables about 
the cave are current. I, however, advise every 
one to come to an understanding beforehand with 
these two in regard to terms. Our host, whom I 
can recommend, on account of his knowledge of 
the island, is to have a very small boat built, so 
that an entrance can more easily be effected. At 
present, it can only be recommended to good 
swimmers. It is most beautiful in the morning, 
because in the afternoon the light is stronger, and 
the mysterious charm thereby diminished. The 
picturesque effect will be increased, if the visitor 
can, like ourselves, carry with him into the cave 
burning torches." 

Thus speaks Kopisch. He has left this magnifi- 
cent memorial of himself to the island ; and I feel 
as if the wonderful grotto were the property of 
Germany, and a type of the German mind. In 
this place I mingle, with the thought of this poet- 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 87 

painter, memories of Tieck, Novalis, Fouque, Ar- 
nim, Brentano (now all gone to their rest), down to 
EichendorrT and Heine, the last enchanted princes 
of this school of poesy. We will therefore, as 
pilgrims, pour upon the graves of these dead poets 
a libation of the blue fire-water of Capri.; for 
they all dreamed of this grotto, and it is right that 
the glory of its discovery should be granted only to 
a poet and a painter of the same century with 
those who sought the blue magical flower of Poesy 
in the depths of the sea with Undine, or with the 
goddess Venus among the mountains, or in the 
subterranean grottoes of Isis : they were all, great 
and small, lovely children, boys with the wonder- 
horn. Their high priest Novalis is a pale, beauti- 
ful youth, who has put on the long priestly robes of 
an ancestor, and speaks mystical words of wisdom, 
while no one knows whence the child has learned 
it. The muse of this band of poets is a siren : 
she lives in the Blue Grotto of Capri, the island of 
the fearful Tiberius. They have ail heard her heart- 
stirring song ; but not one of them has found her : 
they have all sought her, and have all died of long- 
ing for the blue magic flower. Goethe prophesied 
of them in his " Fischer : " — 

" Halb zog' sie ihn, halb sank' er hin, 
Und ward nicht mehr geseh'n." 



65 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

And now that the blue magic flower, that is the 
blue, enchanted grotto, for that was the unknown 
mystery, is found, the spell is broken, and no song 
of the romantic school will again be heard in Ger- 
many. 

When I entered the grotto, I felt as if I had 
gone back into one of those fairy-tales in which 
we live as children. Daylight and the upper world 
have suddenly disappeared ; and you find yourself 
in the hollow earth, in the midst of a twilight of 
blue fire. The waves cast up sparkling, pearly 
drops, as if thousands of shining sapphires, red 
rubies, and carbuncles, were thrown up from the 
depths. The walls are of a ghostly and mysterious 
blue, like the palaces of fairies. A sense of foreign 
substance and spirit pervades the place, making it 
in the strangest way at once mysterious and famil- 
iar. All is silent, as if in a world of shadows : no 
one ventures to speak. First comes a cry of admi- 
ration, then perfect stillness ; and the only sound 
is the dipping of the oar, or the rippling of the 
waves, which weave wreaths of phosphorescent 
light on the rocky walls. The blue water is irre- 
sistibly alluring : it rouses an intense desire to 
plunge therein, and sink, drowning, into a sea of 
light. I have seen upon a Greek vase a figure of 
a siren, a very beautiful figure, raising both arms, 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 89 

white as lilies, while she laughs, and strikes together 
two shining brass cymbals : thus do the sirens rise 
in this cave out of the waves of blue fire, strike 
their cymbals, laughing, and dive into the waves, 
and rise again. But they can be seen only by little 
children, and by men and women born on Sunday. 
The wealth of this island in grottoes is truly sur- 
prising, — land-grottoes and sea-grottoes of singular 
forms, and all beautiful : there are so many, that it 
is impossible to learn to know them all. I have 
penetrated into more than fifteen of these grottoes, 
and have discovered one, on the southern coast of 
the island, which has almost the same effect of blue 
light that is seen in the Grotta Azzura. Others 
have a green light, caused by the materials of which 
the earth is composed, shining like whitish phos- 
phorescent fire, especially in the Grotto Verde, the 
finest grotto in Capri, from its beautiful arched form 
and the magnificent rocky peaks that surround it. 
It is not quite a subterranean grotto, but has a pas- 
sage through the rock, from one side to the other. 
Some of these grottoes have names, as Marmolata, 
Marinella : others are nameless. Without claiming 
the distinction of being a discoverer of grottoes, I 
had the pleasure of naming all those nameless ones 
which I visited. And so I alone know how beau- 
tiful it is in the Grotto Stella di Mare ; in the won- 



90 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

derful Grotto Euphorion, adorned with seaweed ; 
in the Grotto of the Sea-spider, whose walls are 
yellow, and whose stones, where they are washed 
by the waves, glimmer with white, velvet-green, and 
rose-color. In one grotto was a sound of waves 
lapsing, and beating against the rocks in rhythmi- 
cal cadence, so that I consecrated it to the Eumen- 
ides. The grottoes lie all along, from the shore 
near Solaro, out beyond the Faraglioni, scarcely 
visible from without, so that their opening often 
escapes the superficial glance • but within, high- 
vaulted, dark, and their silent waters inhabited by 
crabs, sea-urchins, and star-fish, — a mysterious 
band of hermits. 

It is well worth while to make the circuit of the 
whole island : for this, only three hours are needed, 
and some of the grottoes may also be visited in 
this space of time. The western coast has not the 
same formation as the others, having no caves nor 
grottoes ; for here the shore sinks down from Solaro 
between the Capes Punta di Vitareto and Punta di 
Carena. It sends out three low, rugged promonto- 
ries, Campetiello, Pino, and Orica, which are pro- 
tected with fortifications. This is the spot where 
the Muratists climbed the rocks by night. But, in 
rowing past the promontory of Carena, you pass a 
spot where the southern shore becomes suddenly 






THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 91 

of immense height, and very steep : the rocks rise 
in tall gigantic forms, perpendicularly from the 
watery mirror, shooting upward into the clouds, 
which surround their summits with mist. This is 
the formation of the southern coast as far as Punta 
Tragara ; and the eastern coast is not less sublime 
and fantastic, stretching as far as Lo Capo, the 
north-east cape of the island. Here the shore 
abounds in caves full of stalactitic formations. 

Now let us ascend the highest peak of Capri, 
Mount Solaro. If you climb up from Anacapri, 
painfully scrambling over the pathless rocks, you 
reach at last the crest of the mountain. The shape, 
indeed the whole aspect of the mountain, is very 
striking : for it sinks precipitately from its very 
summit, forming a dried-up, brown plain, — the 
roof of that wall of rock which hangs over Capri. 
Upon this brown heath you walk, between rough 
blocks of limestone ; and every step disturbs swarms 
of brown grasshoppers, which cover the ground in 
countless numbers. On the very edge of this plain, 
above this frightful precipice, clings the cell of the 
hermit of Anacapri, and I never saw a hermitage . 
which was one so completely. The entrance to 
the cell is through the old chapel. I found all 
the doors open, and the hermit not at home. His 
cowl hung over the wall of his little garden ; over 



92 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

his bed a picture of St. Antony of Padua, a con- 
secrated olive-twig, and a wreath of roses ; in his 
storeroom, the Madonna Dolorosa, weeping, just 
above a heap of onions, and near by a basket of 
bread, and two empty plates. 

In the Campo Santo of Pisa I had seen that 
curious and fanciful old fresco-painting of Am- 
brogio and Piero Lorenzetti, which represents the 
life of a hermit in the wilderness, and found some- 
thing akin to that picture here produced in real 
life. I am convinced that this old hermit preaches 
every Friday to the fishes, like St. Antony, who 
may be seen, in a painting in Rome, standing on a 
rocky cliff, and preaching down into the sea. The 
stupid fishes stretch their heads up out of the 
water, with wide-opened mouths. As I was looking 
about the cell, the old man entered, — a lay-brother. 
He carried on his shoulder a bundle of brush- 
wood. He seemed very glad to find a guest, and 
apologized for having no wine to offer me. He 
had lived for thirty- two years in this cell, and limps 
somewhat, the effect of mountain-climbing,. — not 
club-footed and Mephistophelian, like the Tiberius 
hermit, but gentle and friendly, like the saints and 
the Indian gods. 

Above his dizzy cell rises the summit of Solaro, 
the highest peak of Capri, and, as before related, 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 93 

the watch-tower of a lonely man, who spends his 
life looking for sails. When you have labored up 
to this point, you enjoy the reward of Hercules \ 
for here lies the whole island spread out at your 
feet, — a cosmos of wonderful beauty. And this 
is the horizon that meets the eye, — on the south 
the boundless sea : toward the west and north 
the islands of Ponza, the high peaks of Ischia, the 
island of Vivara, the gentle slopes of Procida ; 
behind them, dreamy and distant, the mountains 
of Gaeta and Terracina, with the Cape of Circe ; 
farther, the mountain pyramids of Misenum, at 
the foot of which Tiberius was murdered ; the 
shores of Cimbria and of the Elysian Fields ; 
the blue coasts of Baise and Pozzuoli ; Cumse, with 
the mountains of Gaurus and of Solfaterra ; the 
castle-crowned island of Nisida ; the slender Pausi- 
hppo ; the sharp peak of Camaldoli ; the far moun- 
tains of Capua ; then the gleaming shore of 
Naples, a long line from the city to Torre del 
Greco ; the two-peaked, smoking Vesuvius above 
Pompeii, and behind it the beautiful mountains of 
Sarno and Nocera, with their wealth of spurs and 
gorges : to the east the brown, sharply-chiselled 
coast of Massa, with the capes of Sorrento and 
Minerva ■ behind, the gigantic mountain St. Angelo ; 
farther still, the Rocks of the Sirens, and the high, 



94 THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 

mountainous shores of Amalfi and Salerno ; and 
last, far away, the white, distant mountains of Cala- 
bria, Paestum, — a mere line of shore, — and Cape 
Licosa, in Lucania. 

On such a height, and gazing at this far-distant 
horizon, we receive a consciousness of the bound- 
less possibilities of human life ; for the ordinary 
routine of existence is fearfully narrow, and small 
things — call them by whatever name you please — 
press so closely on us, that there is a constant, petty, 
painful struggle for larger opportunities. For all 
education consists in widening the horizon : its 
best reward is a glimpse of the heights of Culture, 
where the arts and sciences — all that has been 
seen, thought, lived — form themselves, according 
to divine law, into a far-reaching cosmic circle. 
On the summit of Solaro I thought of Humboldt : 
I thought how, before his mind, the whole world 
lies spread out, as beautiful as this landscape, and 
as clearly defined ; and I also thought of Pliny, 
the Humboldt of the Romans, as I looked at the 
mountains of Misenum and of Vesuvius ; and of 
Aristotle, that truly cosmic mind, who classified all 
human knowledge. 

But we, satisfied and glad to have once beheld 
with the eyes of the body this vast panorama of 
nature, descend the mountain,, for the sun is setting 



THE ISLAND OF CAPRI. 95 

behind Ischia. Already the broad sea glows in the 
west, a deep crimson ; and the Rock of Ponza, 
which rises out of the waves, far and beautiful, as 
if it lay in another sphere of light and space, is 
all glowing and glimmering with transparent crimson 
fire. And so, farewell to the Island of Hermits, — 
beautiful Capri ! 



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